Archives: Chercheurs (chercheur)

Sinisha Brdar est architecte, designer urbain et professeur à l’École de design de l’UQAM à Montréal.  Il a précédemment enseigné à l’Université de Montréal, à McGill et à Harvard GSD.  Diplômé de l’Université de Montréal et de Harvard GSD, il a travaillé au sein de nombreuses agences d’architecture au Canada et à l’international, dont Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Maccreanor Lavington, Daoust Lestage, Corriveau Girard, NIP paysage et EKIP.  Explorant les intersections entre la politique et l’urbanisme, ses recherches portent sur la notion de catalyseur urbain et le paradigme émergent de l’urbanisme léger. Ses projets actuels de recherche-création portent également sur divers aspects de l’habiter.

Dr. Carly Ziter is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at Concordia University, where she holds a University Research Chair in Urban Ecology and Sustainability. As a landscape and urban ecologist, her research asks how landscape structure, land-use history, and biodiversity impact multiple ecosystem services – the benefits we receive from nature – and their relationships in urban areas. Carly and her students combine field-based studies, sensor and satellite data, community science, and synthesis approaches to understand the ways urban nature can contribute to safer, healthier, more livable cities. Her research is highly interdisciplinary, including active collaborations with colleagues from urban studies, engineering, communications, design, and political science, and benefits from non-academic partnerships spanning grassroots organizations to federal government. She is increasingly interested in how we can better integrate methodologies from the social and natural sciences for more impactful urban research. Carly is also committed to integrating public engagement and science communication into her scientific work, and has received Concordia University’s “Research Communicator of the Year” award for local, National, and International media coverage of her work.

Olivier Vallerand is an architect, historian, associate professor and head of the interior design program at the École de design de l’Université de Montréal, which he joined after a post-doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley and an early professorial career at Arizona State University. His research focuses on the relationships between personal and collective identifications and the use and design of the built environment, on heritage and the memorialization processes of marginalized populations, and on feminist and queer approaches to design pedagogy.

Olivier is currently completing research on the HIV/AIDS epidemic and its impact on design (subsidized by the Fonds de recherche du Québec), which will be the subject of an exhibition in three public spaces in Montreal in 2025-2026. He has begun a research-creation project entitled “Materializing the built history of LGBTQ communities in Quebec, projecting their future” (Fonds de recherche du Québec), and is co-researcher on “The social experience of public toilets in Ville-Marie: enjeux, affects et stratégies d’inclusion des personnes marginalisées“ (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, principal investigator: Maria Nengeh Mensah, UQÀM) and ”Des-ancrage – Des-encrage: De l’écran à la carte, queeriser l’espace par les marges” (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, principal investigator: Joëlle Rouleau). For several years, he has been developing a research-teaching collaboration with Architecture sans frontières Québec, Professor Carolyne Grimard and various Montreal community organizations working with people experiencing homelessness. With the Queer Educators in Architecture Network, Olivier is also currently preparing a special issue of Charrette magazine on queer pedagogies in architecture and design.

His book Unplanned Visitors: Queering the Ethics and Aesthetics of Domestic Space, winner of the IDEC Book Award 2021 and ASID’s Joel Polsky Prize 2022, presents the first history of the emergence of queer theory in architectural discourse. His research has also been published in the Journal of Architectural Education, Interiors: Design | Architecture | Culture, Somatechnics, Inter art actuel, The Educational Forum, The Plan, Captures: figures, theories and practices of the imaginary, RACAR, la Revue du CREMIS, Nouvelles pratiques sociales, Jeunes et société, Les politiques sociales, Genre Éducation Formation, Reflets: revue d’intervention sociale et communataire, among others, as well as in the collective works Interior Urbanism Theory Reader (Routledge), Whitechapel Documents of Contemporary Art: Sexuality (MIT Press), Contentious Cities: Design and the Gendered Production of Space (Routledge), Global Encyclopaedia of Women in Architecture (Bloomsbury), Queering Architecture: Methods, Practices, Spaces, Pedagogies (Bloomsbury), Dynamiques de genre : la place des femmes en architecture, urbanisme et paysage (Parenthèses), Santé LGBTI: les minorités de genre et de sexualité face aux soins (Bord de l’eau), Making Men, Making History: Canadian Masculinities across Time and Place (UBC Press) and the German Architectur Annual 2023 (Deutsches Architekturmuseum/DOM). He is a regular contributor to Canadian Architect and Dwell.

Finally, Olivier’s research in architecture and design is strongly influenced by his volunteer involvement as research coordinator at GRIS-Montréal since 2009. In this capacity, he coordinates and mentors a team of volunteers and employees who have developed recognized expertise in community-based research on the use of testimonials to demystify sexual and gender diversity, and on young people’s attitudes towards sexual and gender diversity. As principal researcher, Olivier is currently coordinating GRIS projects funded by Women and Gender Equality Canada and the Quebec government’s Fight Against Homophobia and Transphobia program.

Director of the School of Architecture since June 1, 2021, Izabel Amaral was a professor at Laurentian University’s McEwen School of Architecture in Sudbury from 2016 to 2021. Trained as an architect in Brazil, she practiced architecture there for several years before embarking on doctoral studies at the Faculty of Environmental Design and settling in Canada in 2005.

During her professional practice in Brazil, Izabel Amaral developed a remarkable aptitude for architectural design, with a great facility for applying and teaching organizational, spatial, structural and aesthetic principles. In addition to a large number of residential and institutional projects, her practice has led her to develop expertise in architectural acoustics, particularly for auditoriums and amphitheaters.

Izabel Amaral’s doctoral research is a contribution to contemporary theories of the architectural project, demonstrating the topicality of the notion of tectonics and constructive thought as an essential part of the architectural design process. Working in the interdisciplinary field of material culture, his work links architectural history and theory, technical knowledge and cultural transfer. Her research interests focus on the cultural meanings of architectural construction, exploring the expressive potential of materials and their various assemblages. She is interested in the notions of narrative, detail and structure, as well as the binomial of tradition and innovation, because of their implications for project design and teaching.

Izabel Amaral takes a keen interest in architectural prizes and competitions, not least because of their potential for experimentation and imagination, and as a process leading to innovations in architecture. Her recent research has focused on a critical reflection of Canadian architectural projects recognized by innovations linked to the use of new wood technologies (SSHRC-funded project entitled An Ecology of Wood Cultures in Canada (2003-2020): comparing constructive cultures through awarded architectural designs). At the same time, Izabel Amaral is interested in the relationship between language, culture and society as part of a research project on architectural pedagogy. Drawing on her professional practice and expertise in architectural acoustics, in 2019 she took a first step into research-creation, exploring the link between music, politics, drawing and body movements.

On the pedagogical front, she is responsible for the Master of Architecture program and coordinates optional workshops in the third year of the Bachelor of Architecture program.

Virginie LaSalle is on the faculty of the School of Design since 2016 and she is teaching in the Bachelor of Interior Design program since 2007. Trained as an interior designer, she practiced in specialized and multidisciplinary firms before embarking on a specialized master’s degree in history and theory at the M.Sc.A. aménagement, followed by doctoral studies.

Thomas-Bernard Kenniff is a professor of environmental design at the École de design de l’Université du Québec à Montréal since 2015.

His research and design work focuses on the formalization of social arrangements and their spaces, municipal architectural devices, the theory and design of urban public spaces, and related issues of identity and politics. He is also interested in design processes, including inter- and transdisciplinary methods, collaborative practices, the process of subjectivation, and the application of the concepts of dialogue, ambivalence and indeterminacy to the processes and pedagogy of the design project. His research has been funded by SSHRC, FRQSC, Canada Council for the Arts, UCL and UQAM.

His doctoral thesis on dialogue, ambivalence and the design of public space, defended in 2013, is nominated by University College London (UCL) for a research award from the Royal Institute of British Architects.

He is co-founder, with Professor Carole Lévesque (École de design, UQAM), of the Bureau d’étude de pratiques indisciplinées (www.be-pi.ca), a researcher member of the Villes-Régions-Monde (VRM) inter-university network, and an associate researcher at the Canada Chair on Small and Medium-sized Cities (Hiên Pham, ESG, UQAM).

Ipek Türeli is Assistant Professor in the Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture at McGill, where she holds the Canada Research Chair in Architectures of Spatial Justice. Her research explores the role of architecture in the articulation, mediation, and negotiation of political selves, and recognizes not only the agency of the built environment but also of architects. She is interested in how architects can use their professional knowledge to advocate for justice, a topic that has received relatively little attention. Professor Türeli’s current research spans the full range of social engagement in the profession, from the longer history of humanitarian architecture, such as that of religious missionaries, to more recent efforts by contemporary designers to contribute to social movements. Her work supports a new generation of architects interested in social justice by building on the profession’s history in this realm, as well as the discipline’s record of urban advocacy. Her publications include Istanbul Open City (Routledge, 2017), and her teaching at McGill has explored challenges faced in refugee communities.

Bechara Helal is a Doctor of Architecture from the University of Montreal. His research, under the direction of Jean-Pierre Chupin, focuses on the model of the scientific research laboratory in contemporary architectural practices. He holds a degree in structural engineering from the École Polytechnique de Montréal and a professional master’s degree in Architectural Design from the Université de Montréal. He has had the opportunity to participate in the practice setting in the design of several projects in competition situations, in particular with the Saucier + Perrotte Architectes agency.

Biography

Louise Pelletier was trained as an architect. She has been Professor at the School of Design of the Université du Québec à Montréal since 2006 where she was Director of the Undergraduate Program in Environmental Design from 2008 to 2012 and Director of the School of Design from 2014 to 2017. She is currently Director of the Design Centre at UQAM. 

She graduated from the School of Architecture at Laval University. She also holds a post-professional master’s degree and a Ph.D. in architecture from McGill University. Before being employed by UQAM, she worked in private practice for about ten years. She has been a curator and has designed several exhibitions in Montreal, Japan, Brazil and Norway. She taught at the School of Architecture at McGill University from 1997 to 2006 and was a Visiting Professor at the School of Architecture at the Université de Montréal and the School of Architecture at the University of Oslo.

Louise Pelletier is the author of several books on the history and theory of architecture including Architecture in Words; Theatre, Language and the Sensuous Space of Architecture (Routledge 2006), and co-author of Architectural Representation and the Hinge Perspective (MIT Press, 1997) and Theatrical Space as a Model for Architecture (McGill Libraries, 2003). Her articles have appeared in architecture and design journals in Canada, the United States and Europe. Her most recent book, Downfall: The Architecture of Excess (RightAngle International, 2014), is a novel that reflects on issues of contemporary architectural practice. Her current research focuses on exhibition design.

Publications

Books

• Downfall, The Architecture of Excess – a novel (Montréal : RightAngle International Publishing, 2014).
• Marcher Montréal avec un artiste : Le Vieux-Montréal (Montréal on Foot with an Artist : Old Montreal), édition bilingue (Montreal : Sgräff, 2013).
• Architecture in Words : Theatre, Language and the Sensuous Space of Architecture (London : Routledge, 2006).
• Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge, (Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press, 1997), en collaboration avec A. Pérez-Gómez.
• Anamorphosis, an Annotated Bibliography with Special References to Architectural Representation, Fontanus Monograph Series (Montreal: McGill University Libraries, 1996), en collaboration avec A. Pérez-Gómez.
• Architecture, éthique et technologie, (Montréal & Kingston: McGill & Queen’s University Press, 1994), textes réunis par L. Pelletier et A. Pérez-Gómez.

Chapters

• « The Function of Fiction in Fabrication: Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni, the Italian confabulator » dans Confabulations, Storytelling in Architecture, textes réunis par Paul Emmons, Marcia Feurstein, and Carolina Dayer, Routledge 2017, 193-198.
• « L’exposition d’architecture en mutation : le cas du Centre canadien d’architecture » dans L’Objet de l’exposition : l’architecture exposée, textes réunis par Stéphane Doré et Frédéric Herbin, publié par InTRu – Université François-Rabelais de Tours, 2015.
• « On Water and Other Fluids: A Bloody Account of Urban Circulation », dans Architecture’s Appeal, édité par Marc Neveu et Negin Djavaherian, publié par Routledge, 2015, pp. 94-105.
• « Performing Architecture : From Medieval Festival to Modern-Day Carnival » dans Architecture as a Performing Art, édité par Marcia Feuerstein et Gray Read, publié par Ashgate Press, 2013, pp.131-146.
• « The Space of Fiction : On the Cultural Relevance of Architecture » dans The Cultural Role of Architecture, édité par Paul Emmons, John Hendrix, Jane Lomholt, publié par Routledge, 2012, pp.58-67.
• « Prière de garder le silence! » dans Architectures du spectacle, textes réunis par Jacques Plante, préface de Robert Lepage, Avril 2011.
• «Ogrody namietnosci w XVIII wieku » (traduction de “Garden of Desire in the 18th Century”) in Przestrzeń ogrodu, przestrzeń kultury, Grzegorz Gazda et Mariusz Gołąb éditeurs (Cracovie: TAiWPN “Universitas”, 2009).
• « Garden of Desire in the 18th Century », publié dans Space of a Garden, Space of Culture, (Londres: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008).
• « Genius, Fiction and the Author in Architecture », dans Architecture and Authorship: Studies in Disciplinary Remediation, (Londres : Black Dog Publishing, 2007).
• « La perspective comme géométral au 18^e siècle », dans Cahiers de la recherche architecturale et urbaine, no.17, publié par le Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance (Tour, 2005).

Peered reviewed papers

• « Modeling the Void : Mathias Goeritz and the Architecture of Emotions » publié dans JAE (Journal of Architectural Education) 62, no.2, (Novembre 2008).
• « Architecture of Events : Reconfiguring the City », dans Threshold 31, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (Boston, 2006).
• « Johann Henrich Lambert’s Natural Perspective », publié dans Toward a Disciplinary Identity of the Making Professions, The Oslo Millennium Reader, Research Magazine no.4 (Oslo : Oslo School of Architecture, 2001).
• « Tu m’harcèles » publié dans Scroope 9 (Cambridge, 1995), en collaboration avec A. Pérez-Gómez.
• « Tower of Babel: the Building of a Horizon», publié dans Chora, Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture (Montreal: McGill & Queen’s University Press, 1994).
• « A Place for Healing the Earth and the Body », publié dans Oz Journal of the College of Architecture and Design, vol .16 (Kansas City: Kansas State University Press, 1994), en collaboration avec A. Pérez-Gómez.
• « Architectural Representation beyond Perspectivism », publié dans Perspecta 27 (New York: The Yale Architectural Journal, and Rizzoli International Publications, 1993), en collaboration avec A. Pérez-Gómez.

to be published

• “Taking the Measure of the Incommensurable: Architectural Representation of the Improbable”, dans The Routledge Research Companion on Architecture, Literature and the City, textes réunis par Jonathan Charley (à paraître chez Ashgate en septembre 2018).
• « Ceilings as a Place of Dis/Appearance in the Eignteenth Century », dans Ceilings and Dreams: the Architecture of Levity, textes réunis par Jodi La Coe, Paul Emmons et Federica Goffi (à paraître chez Routledge en 2019).
• “Power, Patronage, and Politics: The Reception of Neoclassicism in France”, dans Routledge Handbook of the Reception of Classical Architecture, textes réunis par Nicholas Temple, Andrzej Piotrowski et Juan Heredia (à paraître chez Routledge en 2019).
• « Silence Please! A Brief History of Silence at the Theatre », dans The Place of Silence, textes réunis par Mark Dorian et Christos Kakalis (considéré pour publication par Bloomsbury Publishing, date de parution à determiner).
• « L’analogie de l’architecture avec nos sensations », dans Le corps sensoriel au sein des loisirs et divertissements, textes réunis par Isabelle Pichet, Laurent Turcot et Marc-André Bernier (considéré pour publication, maison d’édition et date de parution à déterminer).

Published lectures

• « Du didactisme en architecture – quelques réflexions sur le langage architectural », 2018
• « L’analogie de l’architecture avec nos sensations », 2018
• « Exposer l’architecture : une discipline en mutation », 2018
• « Beyond Ephemeral: the Architecture of Festivals as a Tool for change », 2017
• « Ceilings as a Place of Dis/Appearance in the Eignteenth Century », 2017
• “Power and Politics : Ephemeral Architecture as a Tool for Change”, 2016
• « Le pavillon de design, un bâtiment actif », 2016
• « Silence Please! A Brief History of Silence at the Theatre », 2016
• “Architecture and its Mediated Image”, 2015
• « Champ Libre: The Rehabilitation of a Resilient City », 2015
• « Design éphémère et pérennité culturelle », 2015
• « A Conversation around The Genius of Architecture : The World of Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières », 2014
• « Exposer l’architecture : la place du corps dans la scénographie expérientielle », 2014
• « In Search of Narrative: Architecture Representation in a Digital World », 2013
• « Montréal : l’exposition d’architecture en mutation », 2013
• « Mapping the city through circulation : A bloody account of Modernity! », 2012
• « The Space of Fiction: On the Cultural relevance of Architecture », 2010
• « The Space of Fiction: An Architectural Seduction », 2010
• « Genius, Fiction and the Author in Architecture », 2008
• « Ephemeral Architecture and Urban Theatre », 2017
• « The Space of Fiction: An Architectural Seduction », 2007
• « Drawing in Time: Mathias Goeritz and the development of an architecture of events”, 2007

Mediation and Research Creation

Exhibitions / Installations

• Annuel de design 2017: Coordination de l’exposition des projets des étudiants finissants en design à L’UQAM, 2017.
• Annuel de design 2016: Coordination de l’exposition des projets des étudiants finissants en design à L’UQAM, 2016.
• Edition spéciale 2015: Coordination de l’exposition des projets des étudiants finissants en design à L’UQAM, 2015.
• Exemplaire 2010 : Co-commissaire avec Angela Grauerholz, 2010.
• Corpo Tangível: Installation produite dans le cadre de la Semaine internationale des arts numériques et alternatifs (SIANA), Palácio das Artes, Belo Horizonte au Brésil. Conception générale et production en collaboration avec José Cabral Filho, directeur du LAGEAR (Laboratório Gráfico para a Experiência da Arquitetura), école d’architecture de l’UFMG, juillet 2009.
• Polyphilo Revisitado : Installation produite dans le cadre du 39^e Festival de Inverno, Diamantina au Brésil, Instituto Casa da Glória/IGC-UFMG. Conception générale et production en collaboration avec Alberto Pérez-Gómez et José Cabral Filho, juillet 2007.
• Polia’s dance : Installation produite dans le cadre des célébrations en l’honneur du centième anniversaire de l’architecte brésilien, Oscar Neimeyer, à la Casa do Baile. Conception générale et production en collaboration avec José Cabral Filho, Ana Paula Baltazar, et Alberto Pérez-Gómez, juillet 2007.
• 70 architectes : Centre de design de l’UQAM. Commissaire de l’exposition; design et réalisation en collaboration avec George Labrecque, octobre 2007.
• Piero en Tête : Exposition de l’œuvre du sculpteur Geoffrey Smedley, Centre Canadien de l’Architecture, 2001.
• Theshold : Une exposition multi-média basée sur Polyphilo or the Dark Forest Revisited, ROM Gallerie for Arkitektur d’Oslo en Norvège, 2000.
• Osaka Quarry Competition. Exposition de dessins et maquettes, Osaka, Japon, 1994.

Catalogues

• Exemplaire 2014, (Montréal : École de design UQAM, 2014), textes et projets réunis par L. Pelletier et A. Colizzi.
• Exemplaire 2012, (Montréal : École de design UQAM, 2012), textes et projets réunis par L. Pelletier et A. Colizzi.
• Exemplaire 2011, (Montréal : École de design UQAM, 2011), textes et projets réunis par L. Pelletier et J. Poirier.
• Exemplaire 2010, (Montréal : École de design UQAM, 2010), textes et projets réunis par L. Pelletier et J. Poirier.
• Introduction à Threshold, Passages, and Other Crossings, McGill University School of Architecture, History and theory graduate studio (Montréal, 2005).
• Introduction à Ritual Cycles : Mapping the Labyrinth, McGill University School of Architecture, History and theory graduate studio (Montréal, 2003).
• « Project Review”, dans The PR Book, Exhibition Catalogue, McGill University, History and theory of architecture (Montréal, 2002).
• « L’architecture et la constellation de nombres », publié dans Piero en Tête, catalogue de l’exposition sur l’œuvre de Geoffrey Smedley au CCA de mai à septembre 2001 (Montréal : Centre Canadien d’architecture, 2001), en collaboration avec A. Pérez-Gómez.

Ph.D. Architecture – Princeton University, Princeton, USA

Louis Martin teaches the history of architecture in the programmes of the Art History Department at UQAM, where he is Professor since 2004.

After graduating in architecture at the Université de Montréal (B.Arch., 1983), he pursued his studies in the history, theory and criticism programmes at MIT (S.M.Arch.S. 1988) and Princeton University (Ph.D. 2002). Using a comparative method, he studies the points of the intersection linking architectural theory and other disciplines.

He is currently working on a critical edition of the writings of Melvin Charney entitled On Architecture. Melvin Charney: A Critical Anthology which will be published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2013. His most recent publications includes “Fredric Jameson and Critical Architecture“, The Political Unconscious of Architecture: Re-opening Jameson’s Narrative. Nadir Lahiji, ed. Ashgate Studies in Architecture, London: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2011; “History, Theory, Criticism: The Evolution of an Intellectual Discourse“, Architecture School: 250 Years of Architectural Education in North America. Joan Ockman and Rebecca Williamson, eds. Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, 2012; “Paul Rudolph and the Anglo-American Axis“, Cynthia Davidson, ed. Yale University Press, (to be published).

He has published essays in Log,  Assemblage, Casabella, JSAH, Les cahiers de la recherche architecturale et urbaine, Critique d’art, and ARQ, among others.

Fields of specialization:

Histoire, théorie et critique de l’architecture

Mouvement moderne en architecture

Architecture nord-américaine et québécoise

Research groups:

Laboratoire d’étude de l’architecture potentielle (LEAP), Université de Montréal

Institut de recherche en histoire de l’architecture

Research grants:

« Une anthologie critique des écrits de Melvin Charney, architecte et artiste » – En collaboration avec Réjean Legault, professeur, École de Design, UQAM

(FQRSC-LEAP), Université de Montréal, 2008-2009

« Paroles d’architectes : enquête sur la culture architecturale au Québec de 1960 à nos jours. » – Recherche individuelle

Subvention du Programme d’aide financière à la recherche et à la création

(PAFARC), UQAM, 2005-2007

Academic background:

2002 : Ph.D. in  Architecture (Princeton University)

1991 : Master of Arts (Princeton University)

1988 : Master of Science in Architecture Studies (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

1983 : Baccalauréat en architecture (Université de Montréal)

Professional background:

2004- : Professeur d’histoire de l’architecture à l’Université du Québec à Montréal

2003-2004 : Chargé de formation pratique, École d’architecture, Université de Montréal

1997-2002 : Conservateur adjoint, Centre Canadien d’Architecture

1994-1996: Chargé de cours : University of Toronto, McGill University

1988-1989 : Professeur invité, École d’architecture, Université de Montréal

Doctorate thesis

MARTIN, Louis. The Search for a Theory in Architecture : Anglo-American Debates, 1957-1976, Princeton University, novembre 2002.

Masters thesis

Architectural Theory after 1968: A Comparative Study of the Theory and Work of Rem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi, M.I.T., août 1988.