Sustaining Apertures

Location : Or Gallery, Vancouver

Research Based Art Installation With Lys Divine Ndemeye

Curated And Written By Jenn Jackson

Selected by Capture Photo Festical 

Spring 2024

Ceramic Co-Design And Fabrication : Nolan T.K.

Installation Build : Alixzander Morale

Photographed by Connor Davies

The newly commissioned sculptural works presented within Sustaining Apertures engage community-based knowledge and supports, including cultural practices as they relate to ancestral food cultivation, community organizing, and storytelling. From light-based interventions to alternative architectural and archival practices, the lessons nurtured through the exhibition invite opportunities to experience diverse cultural teachings, traditions, and values. The premise of the work, as a site for vertical food cultivation, connects directly to the territory while conceptually allowing for broader considerations for how disruptions from the natural world often equate with the loss of health and culture for all. Whether in an urban or rural environment, territories that have been exposed to colonial processes of degradation, expansion, and extraction require alternate visions for living closely with the land.

Urban Acupuncture

Location : Vancouver, British Columbia

Speculative Research For Urbanarium Think Tank Architectural Competition

The “Vancouver Urban Acupuncture” proposal radically improves low-and middle income housing through focusing on green space and economic resilience at its crore rather than an afterthought. It proposes shared ownership of the kitchen commissery and eaterys and vertical farm thereby ensuring economic resilience that elevates residents’ life. This is done through:
(1) Public green space infrastructure through dense tower housing,
(2) Innovative kitchen-less units combined with a semi-public eatery and
(3) A vertical farm in the basement which relies on the architecture to capture vancouvers rainwater via its planters to irrigate the farm using 97% less water than traditional farming. Holistic projects such as the one proposed could receive possible rebates from the government given the carbon tax discussion.

Live and Work Laneway Home

Location : Vancouver, British Columbia

Engineering Team : Effinity Consulting

Builder : Terracotta Construction

Energy Modeling and Technology : Vantage Energy Solutions

Landscape Architecture : Topographics Landscape Architecture

Status : Construction

The brief initially dictated a combination of an art studio and apartment. Commonly refered to as a lane-way house in Canada, this auxilary lot underwent policy change allowing for a more nuanced use of ones laneway property.  As seen below, the design celebrates the program allowing for the multi generational occupants both in the existing main house and laneway to live and work with space for private semi - private and semi - public moments required in work and life. 

Multi - Generational Family Home 01

Location : Steveston, British Columbia

Engineering : Effinity Consulting

Status : In - Progress

Medium Farms

Feasibility / Speculative Project In
Arctic Farming

The proposed project focuses on prototyping a medium-scale vertical farm in Northern British Columbia. The objective is to pilot the possibilities of an indoor vertical farm within Canada to enhance food security for the local population through providing them with high quality locally grown produce.

Medium Farms Retail

Feasibility / Speculative Project In
Arctic Farming

The proposed project focuses on prototyping a medium-scale vertical farm in Northern British Columbia. The objective is to pilot the possibilities of an indoor vertical farm as a suplimental food source in northern winter.

Urban Parasite

Feasibility Study

A parasitic project that completes the urban fabric in the historic neighbourhood of Strathcona in Vancouver. The rational of the project is divided in two programs. An indoor farm that provides vegetables and herbs to complement the African heritage persued by its neighbours. The strucutre is also concentrated around the indoor farm to provide insulation for the plants and maintain an annual average temp of between 19ºC - 21ºC. The rest of the space is a semi-outdoor space. With a roof provided, this space can convert to whatever the space can allow. From a cafe to a studio space.

Kasirwa Earth House

Project Location : Mt Kilimanjaro , Tanzania

Completed : Fall 2015

About 1,800 m above sea level on the Mt Kilimanjaro, Kisirwa village got the opportunity to boost development by having a school built. Three volumes to house incoming teachers and a pavilion next to the entrance of the site works as a start to developing this arts school to improve the culture and education of the children in this village. A statement made by using vernacular architecture makes a contrast to the cement structures littered in the village. This project was used to educate the villager residents that using vernacular architecture with few contemporary solutions could be the solution to re- duce costs of construction, improve thermal comfort of living and celebrate a rich history in architecture and construction. The structure of the volumes were timber posts re- enforced with mud walls enclosed in gabions with rocks collected from a nearby river. Involving the community in the design of the space as well as the construction.

Epidermis

Selected for Venice Biennale 2023

Reclaiming The Centre : Curated By Livingstone Mukasa

Abstract. As our universal need to access food gets threatened, we find ourselves in a position of contemplating on our consumptions and sustaining systems and materials. How did we get here and how do we move forward from here? Our current methods of material understanding in the built environment which prioritize extractive systems, heavy machinery, force and attempts of natural domination, stand in stark contrast to indigenous ecological approaches. This proposal seeks to spark a conversation on the ways in which the tools and thoughts in architecture and landscape architecture support the shift towards life sustaining systems, materials and relations.  

Summer Film Series

Curated Film Series 

Summer 2023

Venue : Landyachtz Courtyard

Graphic Design : Ashley Visvanathan

Film Directors :

Kaho Yoshida
Esther Cheung
Tisha Deb Pillai
Lucas Greenough
Bronwyn Davies
Colin Mbugua