91社区

Buildings account for 40% of global carbon emissions. An estimated 80% of buildings that will be standing in 2050 in Canada already exist. Deep energy retrofits (DERs) are renovations that reduce a building's energy consumption by 50-70%. DERs have many benefits beyond energy savings, including extending building lifespan, increasing resiliency, improving resident health, and easing strain on the electricity grid by decreasing peak loads. DERs represent a viable and essential strategy to help Canada meet its GHG emission targets, and substantial funding is being allocated to accelerate their mass deployment.

ReCONstruct, led by the Chair in Architecture, Energy and Environment held by Prof. Michael Jemtrud, is a cross-disciplinary collaboration of academic researchers working with government, industry, and community partners to develop and implement solutions for mass deployment of DERs for Quebec and Canada. We're developing prefabricated over-cladding panel solutions to facilitate the mass deployment of low-carbon DERs through project pipelines: solutions and processes developed in pilot projects can be applied to a vast stock of similar buildings. Our first pilot project is a community centre in Ile-Bizard. We're engaging with partners from the Quebec social housing sector for our second pilot project, a multi-unit residential building (MURB). Many social housing MURBs are in poor condition and present a golden opportunity to maximize DER benefits equitably. Our intention is to drive and support development of the industry capacity needed to realize mass DERs quickly and affordably, including manufacturing infrastructure, product supply, professional expertise and adapted procurement processes.

By sub-project listed below, tasks will be adjusted according to the student's听skillset and specific interests:

Social housing MURB pilot project: Assist in engaging with organizations from the social housing sector to assess candidate buildings and partnership potential to realize a second pilot project. This may include participating in building assessment and health checks, understanding organizational processes linked to retrofits, understanding organizational needs, priorities and bottlenecks within these organizations, supporting funding applications.
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SURE students will help develop a prototype virtual museum of earthquake for Turkiye.

Earthquake museums serve a special purpose: for survivors, they can act as commemorative spaces; for new generations and the general public, they are learning and reflection spaces. For scholars, they can be resources to tell a story about society at large. They can potentially help us remember effectively so that we do not repeat the same mistakes and avoid immense suffering and environmental damage. This project responds to the February 6, 2023 earthquakes (of 7.8 and 7.7 magnitude) in eastern Turkiye and northern Syria. While both quakes were larger than any recorded in the region, experts argue that the death toll could have been avoided. This disaster will continue to unfold as survivors deal with emotional trauma, physical injuries, health hazards due to collapse and demolition of buildings, and economic ruin. There are several earthquake museums built in response to the devastating 1999 earthquake in western Turkiye (Adapazari Deprem ve Kultur Muzesi, 2004; Kandilli Rasathanesi ve Deprem Arastirma Enstitusu Muzesi, 2006). The virtual museum will complement these existing efforts, firstly, by providing a long duree perspective on a century of earthquakes, and secondly, by being accessible on a web platform. Linguistic proficiency in Turkish is an asset but not a prerequisite.

The students will collaboratively work on the following tasks:

1. Create an international inventory of existing earthquake museums.
2. Study the virtual museum format and propose models for presenting.
3. A preliminary database of earthquake coverage in Turkiye鈥檚 mainstream newspapers and architectural and planning journals has already been conducted for the past 100 years. SURE assistant(s) will build on and expand this database.
4. Prototype the Virtual Earthquake Museum for Turkiye.

Please contact professor with info on your competencies, proficiencies and motivation to work on this project.

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SURE students will work on a short film that will disseminate the Design for the Global Majority project as well as helping manage a book-form publication.

This is a research-creation (creative) project that seeks to record and interpret the contributions of the Minimum Cost Housing Group (MCHG) a postgraduate program at 91社区's School of Architecture that was founded in 1971.

In 2023, the project team realized a two-stage exhibition and accompanying events including an international symposium, workshops and guided tours.

The exhibition(s) traced how the MCHG transformed industrial waste into building materials, reduced the environmental impacts of construction, developed culturally appropriate and context-specific design norms, promoted urban agriculture, and challenged conventional urban design and policy. Selected archival materials including photographs, drawings, research reports, videos, tools, and artifacts showcased the MCHG'听wide-ranging contributions.

Workshops and guided tours connected to new and emerging research that takes up similar themes. And the symposium on October 19-20 brought to 91社区, alumni to talk about how they have built upon the experimentation at the MCHG. All these events were recorded on video toward a short film that will be developed by SURE students during the summer of 2024.

As rising costs, inequalities, and inadequate and insufficient housing continue to afflict communities worldwide, Design for the Global Majority revisits the lessons of the MCHG as inspiration for contemporary architects and designers to help us navigate our uncertain future. SURE students will contribute achieve this goal.
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Tasks per student

The students will collaboratively work on the following tasks:
1) Manage and develop the existing MCHG website and database and the Design for Global Majority pages /mchg/about-mchg
/mchg/news-events/design-global-majority-project
2) Edit the project's footage and visual material into a short film
3) Conduct new interviews as required.
4) Help find venues for the dissemination of the film (film festivals, architecture/design film awards etc)
5) Help manage editing of the book-form publication: Follow-up with symposium speakers/alumni of the MCHG regarding their written contributions; development of book design ideas, e.g., synergy between the film and book design.
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