Department of Architecture student reference material

Advanced Technology Topics (1.5 credit hours)

Mineral Modes 2: Material Narratives for Concrete and Colour

Wednesdays, September 10 to October 8, 2025
8:30 am - 12:20 pm

Rodney Latourelle

A consideration of colour and concrete as ‘modal’ voices in the designer’s toolbox. Both colour and concrete are considered as structural elements with critical sustainable and aesthetic dimensions. The course looks further into the ‘somatic semantics’ of these two modal qualifiers and how their articulation modulates spatial assemblage and perception.

The course explores concrete in terms of its cultural significance and as a material that is currently undergoing a significant change in the nature of its production and use. The course further examines colour as an architectural element, considering its relational and situational qualities. If we consider the primacy of perception and how space is felt and navigated, colour has an obvious, and yet mysterious, primacy.

Class discussion about the culture of concrete and the spatial use of colour is combined with time for students to design forms, mix concrete, experiment with texture and pigment, and produce finished concrete works. The focus is on low-carbon, alternative mix designs that include circular materials such as recycled aggregate and the use of ‘earth-friendly’ geopolymer cement. A concluding exhibition presents the students’ experimental work in a public context.

Research Topics: History and Theory (1.5 credit hours)

Non-Public Public Space 1: The Ethics of Place

Wednesdays, September 10 to October 8, 2025
8:30 am - 12:20 pm

Eduardo Aquino

ARCHITECTURE AND PUBLIC SPACE -- Introduction

Architecture and Public Space is a two-part topics course taught back-to-back (fall and winter), to be attended in tandem or independently from each other. Both courses are autonomous, but they complement each other as they, together, form a critique of neoliberalism and the contemporary city. The neoliberal city prioritizes market driven urban development, promoting the privatization of public services, and reducing the state's role in social welfare. This framework fosters urban growth through deregulation and the encouragement of private capital, leading to outcomes like increased social inequality, the transformation of urban space for elite consumption, and the emergence of a consumeristic society, no longer responsive of an architecture that seeks to translate the techniques, mythologies, and the poetry of its time.

The planning and governance efforts of the generic city attract investment and growth at the expense of democratic participation and traditional public welfare, resulting in a restructuring of urban life around market-based ideologies. Architecture and Public Space intends to sidestep this present trend to recover the historical values of urbanism, art, and architecture in present times. In NON-PUBLIC PUBLIC SPACE: THE ETHICS OF PLACE we will investigate the nature of public space and its implications to architecture and urbanism, using “public art” as a source of critique of the new neoliberal city. ARCHITECTURE AND IMAGINATION will articulate a real distinction between architecture and “construction,” a growing blurred line in contemporary architectural practice.

NON-PUBLIC PUBLIC SPACE: THE ETHICS OF PLACE

Does “public space” as we know exist? Public space exists beyond an urban locality. Before it becomes a place, public space exists as a shared value, a desire, a utopia, immaterial, social. Before publicness happens, public space is formed by the mythologies and actions in the city. This topics course seeks to scrutinize the complexities that constitute “public space” and its implications to architecture through an interdisciplinary approach. Is public space in Canada a specific phenomenon with peculiar characteristics or has the Canadian city been a result of the global generic city? In this course we will investigate what constitutes public space from a philosophical, urbanistic, and sociological approach and will identify successful public spaces around the world and study the elements that made them effective.

Research Topics: History and Theory (1.5 credit hours)

Sustainable Architecture and Building Design

Wednesdays, September 10 to October 8, 2025
1:30 pm - 5:20 pm

Maryam Amini

This course introduces students to the core principles, strategies, and frameworks shaping environmentally responsible architecture today. Buildings account for a large share of global energy use and carbon emissions, making sustainability essential for future architects, designers, and planners. Through lectures, case studies, guest speakers, and field visits, students will explore how sustainability is embedded across the building lifecycle stages: from pre-design and site analysis, through design strategies and systems, into in-use performance, and finally end-of-life reuse and deconstruction. The course emphasizes critical thinking, international and Canadian case studies, and the role of architecture in achieving global climate goals.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Explain major sustainability frameworks (LEED, BREEAM, WELL) and their impact on design decisions.
• Analyze sustainable design strategies such as passive systems, renewable energy integration, and biophilic design.
• Evaluate building performance during the use phase, considering energy efficiency and maintenance strategies.
• Explore approaches for circular design, material reuse, and end-of-life disassembly.
• Apply lifecycle thinking to real-world buildings through case study analysis and reflection.

Instructional Methods

Teaching methods will include lectures, assigned readings, class discussions, guest speakers from the architecture and sustainability fields, analysis of real-world case studies, and field visits to exemplary sustainable sites in Winnipeg. Students will also engage in collaborative group activities and presentations to connect theory with practice.

Assignments & Evaluation

• Sustainability Frameworks Review (individual short paper)
• Lifecycle Phase Analysis (pair project with diagrams and discussion)
• Case Study Presentation (group presentation of a certified sustainable building)
• Critical Reflection Essay (individual final report)

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Advanced Technology Topics (1.5 credit hours)

(un)real realities: architectural anomalies & digital frankensteins

Wednesdays, September 10 to October 8, 2025
1:30 pm - 5:20 pm

Chris Burke

Google Street View, with its promise of seamless immersion and objective documentation, is full of architectural monsters – warped facades, spliced windows, dislocated cornices, buildings stitched together from borrowed pixels. Within these errors, the city’s digital double becomes misremembered, reassembled, and made strange, raising questions about authenticity, perception, and the reliability of a digital archive so heavily depended upon.

Marked by layered histories and the ongoing tension between heritage preservation and urban transformation, this course situates its inquiry within Winnipeg’s Exchange District and its browser-based forgeries. Collective digital reconnaissance will be undertaken to locate and categorize algorithmic anomalies before visiting their physical counterparts to rigorously document and analyze the gaps between the fabricated and the factual.

The resulting index of glitches will serve as both artifact and generator, forming the basis for individual projects that treat the digital anomaly not as a flaw to be corrected but as an opportunity for speculation. Drawings, images, and models – meticulous in craft yet uncanny in intent – will be deployed to explore an architectural condition teetering at the juncture between the virtual and the real. These digital-physical constructs will form a catalogue of (un)real realities: a portrait of the city as both fact and frankenstein.

Advanced Technology Topics (1.5 credit hours)

Introduction to Biomimetic Design

Wednesdays, October 15 to November 26, 2025
8:30 am - 12:20 pm

Mercedes Garcia-Holguera

This is an introductory level course where students will explore the principles of biomimetic design and their application to design projects. Students will learn about current methods and tools used in biologically inspired design and will apply these through a self-directed biomimetic project.

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Research Topics: History and Theory (1.5 credit hours)

Non-Public Public Space 2:  Architecture and Imagination

Wednesdays, October 15 to November 26, 2025
8:30 am - 12:20 pm

Eduardo Aquino

ARCHITECTURE AND PUBLIC SPACE -- Introduction

Architecture and Public Space is a two-part topics course taught back-to-back (fall and winter), to be attended in tandem or independently from each other. Both courses are autonomous, but they complement each other as they, together, form a critique of neoliberalism and the contemporary city. The neoliberal city prioritizes market driven urban development, promoting the privatization of public services, and reducing the state's role in social welfare. This framework fosters urban growth through deregulation and the encouragement of private capital, leading to outcomes like increased social inequality, the transformation of urban space for elite consumption, and the emergence of a consumeristic society, no longer responsive of an architecture that seeks to translate the techniques, mythologies, and the poetry of its time.

The planning and governance efforts of the generic city attract investment and growth at the expense of democratic participation and traditional public welfare, resulting in a restructuring of urban life around market-based ideologies. Architecture and Public Space intends to sidestep this present trend to recover the historical values of urbanism, art, and architecture in present times. In NON-PUBLIC PUBLIC SPACE: THE ETHICS OF PLACE we will investigate the nature of public space and its implications to architecture and urbanism, using “public art” as a source of critique of the new neoliberal city. ARCHITECTURE AND IMAGINATION will articulate a real distinction between architecture and “construction,” a growing blurred line in contemporary architectural practice.

ARCHITECTURE AND IMAGINATION

There is no architecture without spirit and imagination. There are many overlapping factors that make up the associations between art & architecture. Artists often have a great interest in architecture (Dan Graham, Piet Mondrian, Tadashi Kawamata), while architects practiced as artists as well (Le Corbusier, Will Alsop, Diller & Scofidio). While historically architecture has been associated with the grand artforms (music, painting, and sculpture), after WWII architecture distanced itself from this tradition to become more of a service provider for the construction industry, defaulting to a consumeristic role. In this process architecture lost its connection to art and imagination. This topics course will survey the relationship of architecture & imagination through projects and texts, providing a forum of discussion to guide anyone to establish personal positions to bring imagination and spirit back into the project.

Advanced Technology Topics (1.5 credit hours)

Principles of Passive House

Wednesdays, October 15 to November 26, 2025
1:30 pm - 5:20 pm

Jessica Piper

This topics course will facilitate a brief overview of Passive House design principles and certification processes. Students will learn and apply the core concepts of Passive House Design in pursuit of highly efficient, comfortable, and resilient buildings. The course will include content on: the history of the Passive House movement; basic principles of Passive House Design and PHPP modelling; high performance building systems and components; common challenges with Passive House design and construction in Canada; and the potential impact of Passive House Design in the context of the ongoing climate emergency.

Advanced Technology Topics (3 credit hours)

Send in the Clouds

Wednesdays, January 7 to March 25, 2026
Check schedule for times

Paul Labossiere
Neil Minuk

In this interdisciplinary design course, architecture and engineering students will be able to participate in a simulated building development process based on a real site and potential actual project. The course is framed around a practical non-idealized real-life situation. Since every building design is unique the course will demand solutions that don’t rely on default solutions from textbooks and websites. Additionally, the course will focus on working cooperatively and in a manner integrated with other related professionals. Integrated design processes and integrated project delivery are increasingly become very common methods by which buildings are designed, constructed and commissioned. Real life practical opportunities are rare in the university context.

Architecture requires architects and engineers to work closely and cooperatively at the highest level. The intention is to create buildings of the highest excellence that are in this case: functional; spiritual; therapeutic; lo-cost, passive and sustainable.

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Advanced Technology Topics (1.5 credit hours)

Active Structures Lab

Wednesdays, January 7 to February 4, 2025
1:30 pm - 5:20 pm

Lancelot Coar

For the most part, human history in construction has comprised the assembly of rigid elements formed to suit a human ideal, often driven by ideological, conceptual, or economic motivations. However, many ancient and indigenous construction methods, as well as nature itself, have produced highly efficient and adaptable structures through active collaboration involving forces, the environment, and material systems. These structures define a different approach to design, one that is rooted in conversation rather than imposition, negotiation rather than relegation, indeterminacy rather than insistence, and flexibility rather than fixity. This course offers a unique opportunity to explore design through this approach by studying and creating Bending Active Structures.

Departing from the industrial logic of assembling rigid "sticks and sheets”, this course delves into a process of elastic deformation, where initially flat or straight elements are carefully bent into their final, complex geometries. This research lab is rooted in the traditions of hands-on play and speculation, which serve as powerful approaches to learning. The course will take place in the CAST building and begin at 1:10 scale studies, resulting in the creation of a full-scale installation to demonstrate a proof-of-concept project.

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Research Topics: History and Theory (1.5 credit hours)

Tectonics of Place: Studies on Landscape, Climate, and Material Culture in Vernacular Architecture

Wednesdays, January 7 to February 4, 2026
8:30 am - 12:20 pm

David Pankhurst

Against the backdrop of the climate crisis, architecture is searching for sustainable modes of building that reduce energy consumption and embodied carbon. While it may be simpler to approach this through technological means, it is important to recall the observations of the architectural historian Kenneth Frampton - that sustainability must be understood to be both a cultural and technical question. In searching for enduring, sustainable models of practice, architects can do no better than look to the vernacular for examples of building traditions that have emerged naturally as byproducts of this integrated cultural and technical dimension.

This course will therefore examine a curated set of global vernacular precedents as models for place-based, climate-responsive design. Through the three analytical lenses of landscape, climate, and material culture—students will explore how these interrelated dimensions of localized building traditions have shaped built form throughout history. Weekly lectures will address each lens in depth, while student-led presentations will track the evolving application of these frameworks to their individual or group case studies.

Making will be central—not as representation, but as inquiry. Each student will develop a cumulative dossier of analytical drawings and rigorous, multi-scalar models that reveal structural, environmental, and tectonic logics. The aim is to expose how form, material, and environment operate in concert—producing architecture that is both environmentally and culturally sustainable.

The course culminates in a quality synthesis that will allow us to speculate on contemporary interpretations of the precedent, and critically assesses its applicability to current practice, including systemic and contextual barriers. Throughout, we will avoid romanticization, foreground ethics of precedent use, and articulate how vernacular knowledge can be responsibly translated today. Evaluations will be based on analytical clarity, tectonic precision, environmental reasoning, and quality of translation.

Research Topics: History and Theory (1.5 credit hours)

The Ensh*ttification of Architecture: Ethics and Aesthetics of Synthetic Design

Wednesdays, January 7 to February 4, 2026
8:30 am - 12:20 pm

Rebecca Loewen

This research seminar examines how artificial intelligence is reshaping architecture. Through critical reading and discussion, students explore the cultural and aesthetic risks and possibilities of synthetic design, the transformation of digital and physical spaces, and the ethics of extractive practices in a post-human world.

Research Topics: History and Theory (1.5 credit hours)

Flirting with Fascism 

Wednesdays, February 25 to March 25, 2026
1:30 pm - 5:20 pm

Ralph Stern

Following his inauguration in January 2025, President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order in the United States titled Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture. It states that ‘Federal public buildings should be visually identifiable as civic buildings and respect regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage in order to uplift and beautify public spaces and ennoble the United States and our system of self-government’.

While many reject such governmental mandates, others welcome them. From a gilded and ‘innately designed’ White House ballroom to ‘Alligator Alcatraz’, new building ensembles are being designed and opened. More will follow. Utilizing the medium of film by noted directors such as Joseph Losey (American), Bernardo Bertolucci (Italian), Rainer Werner Fassbinder (German), and Vanessa Lapa (Israeli), this course addresses the impact of authoritarianism on the psychology of the individual, as ‘insider’ or ‘outsider’. It addresses choices made by architects. As Albert Speer, architect of the proposed ensemble pictured above, recounts: ‘I was twenty-nine years old, and I really would have sold my soul to Mephisto’. Requirements include readings, film screenings, discussions, and a written reflection on whether you would abandon, postpone, or advance your interests and career goals under an authoritarian regime.

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Advanced Technology Topics (1.5 credit hours)

Making Architecture Great Again (MAGA) 
Tracing the Losses of Architecture in Rentier Capitalism

Wednesdays, February 25 to March 25, 2026
1:30 pm - 5:20 pm

Brian Rex

After half a century of favouring investment over labour, consumerism rather than citizenship, broad deregulation, and the financialization of everything; we are neck deep in an “enshitification” of North American urban culture via rampant rentier capitalism. Adam Smith warned us that income inequity breeds rentier capitalism and a society where exchange value fully “trumps” use value. Marketability “trumps” utility.

What’s with architecture? Utility (along with stability and beauty) is part of Vitruvius’ triadic definition of architecture. Rarely in architectural history do we see theories that grapple earnestly with exchange value and financialization of space. Is there a way to reinvigorate architecture’s voice in making more city? The first thing we should do is know how the morphology of the city has changed and how it got to this state.

This topical seminar / workshop will look at the last century of design practices in subdivision development in Winnipeg to trace the impact on our profession of the shift to rentier capitalism in our society in our time.

We’ll look at the history of planned subdivision of the city from the initial City Beautiful neighbourhoods of Crescentwood and The Gates (1900); through the manufactured exclusivity of Tuxedo (1918); to post-war egalitarian superblocks like Wildwood Park and Norwood Flats (1948); through the arrival of associated contractors and master-planned spline subdivisions like Windsor Park (1957); and on to the automobile driven “enshitification” that runs from the 1980s master-planned and covenant restricted Linden Woods to the “Americana” branded “Russian doll”of enclaves in Whyte Ridge through to the contemporary architecturally denuded storm runoff lagoons and splines of walkability at Waverley West / Bridgwater. Students in the seminar will complete a study of a Winnipeg subdivision.

Real estate speculation and development didn’t invent the changes in the structure of our cities. What started the 20th century as a range of design practices working to transform city growth in varying degrees of egalitarian, humane, and efficiently focused land planning and construction technologies found itself rudderless in the increasing geographic, immaterial, and financial scales imposed on placemaking in the last century. To impact where we're going we should remain aware of from where these practices came, that they are constructs that reflect our society, and that an empowered architecture enables people to dwell as community in the land.

Research Topics: History and Theory (1.5 credit hours)

CONTEMPORARY

Wednesdays, February 25 to March 25, 2026
8:30 am - 12:20 pm

Carlos Rueda

This course explores relevant architectural theories, ideas and works, and different perspectives that make part of the rich and complex contemporary context of our discipline and practice. It seeks to theoretically introduce and situate the architecture student to the notion of contemporaneity offering singular and alternative approaches based, not so much on what abounds today, but on what is missing: a notion of the contemporary significantly indebted to thinkers such as Agamben, Eco, or Benjamin. As point of departure, “Contemporary” establishes substantive distinctions between what is commonly understood as ‘modern’ (modernity and modernism) in architecture, vis à vis the kind of contemporaneity that is specific to our global condition, generally understood as a condition of ‘postmodernity’—a term which differs from formalist or ‘stylistic’ postmodernism.

At graduate level, in depth, the course selectively discusses current critical approaches to architectural thinking and practice in seminar format (with readings and presentations), and, in parallel, explores forms of creative research such as analogical translations via models and visual representation. Conceptually “Contemporary” offers original interpretations of today’s world and alternative architectural micro-theories on questions of creative method built upon the original concept of syndesis developed by its instructor. We will benefit as well from guest speakers offering diverse perspectives on the state of the art of their respective orientations in today’s disciplinary spawning global context.