Interdisciplinary approaches to understanding and evaluating environmental and social legacies

 [Fill] is both a process and a product. This article traces the evolution as well as the implications of changing definitions of fill—material generated through demolition and excavation that is used to create new landforms—through its application in three artificial landscapes along Toronto’s lakefront: the Leslie Street Spit, Ontario Place, and Humber Bay Park. In doing so, it considers the memories embodied by the relocated matter. Following its journey through varied material compositions and as awareness of its impact on water grows, this article seeks to understand how new landscapes made from old material are inscribed with layered histories of physical and political transformation. 

[Published by Ra. Architecture Magazine - Oct 2024]

In collaboration with Susan Ross (Carleton University) and Jane Mah Hutton (Waterloo University), Local Technique is conducting research as a part of the Ontario Material Landscapes Research Group. This group contributes to an international scientific research network exploring innovative methods for reading and interpreting the cultural layers of the built environment and activating tangible and intangible traces of the past. 

[2024-2029]

 Green New Deal Landscapes is a series hosted by Jose Alfredo Ramírez and Clara Olóriz Sanjuán, both co-directors of AA Groundlab. Each session discusses the relationship between policy making and our environment and explores how we can tackle climate change through landscape design. In this session, Jane Hutton and Alison Creba  discuss building and construction practices aligned with the Green New Deal movement to tackle the environmental breakdown. 

[Published on UrbanNext - Fall 2022]

A conversation with Mae Bowley with Jane Hutton. about the work and aspirations of Re:Purpose Savannah, a women-run organisation that trains and employs women in the practice of deconstruction. Like many such outfits, they work to divert materials from landfill as a way to combat wasteful economic and political systems that devalue people, forests and cultural heritage. 

[Published in AD - Winter 2022]

Telling the story of demolition in post-war Toronto, this paper traces the entanglements between construction and demolition on three scales: as urban processes, professional and cultural shifts in the demolition industry, and as material, where shifting perceptions determined how it shaped the Lake Ontario shoreline.  Research conducted in collaboration with Jane Hutton.  [Summer 2021]

Chronicling the demolition and deconstruction of Toronto's Honest Ed's, this article inhabits the space between a structure's presence and absence to suggests that engagement with demolition and deconstruction constitutes a form of conservation that also commemorates the site’s ongoing transformation. Published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Design 

[Winter 2019]

Published in a special issue of Architectural Design, this article describes how the Brussels-based architecture and art collective - Rotor - have gained particular prominence in the flourishing reuse sector through their unique  approach to research. Rotor are well known for design work using reclaimed materials and deconstruction processes. Co-authored with Lionel Devlieger

[Fall 2018]

The result of a 6-month research project conducted in Brussels, Belgium, this experimental essay examines the role of peripheral urban spaces in transforming material values. Made possible with support from Carleton University's NSERC CREATE program and Mitacs' Globalinks Research Award.

[published fall 2018]

This research project uses Honest Ed's/Mirvish Village in Toronto as a case study to consider the roles that the site plays in conserving, adapting or transforming the physical and associated values of building materials through processes of demolition and deconstruction.

[spring 2018]

The result of a 4-month research term at ERA Architects, this report reviews the intersections of architectural conservation and waste and proposes hypothetical tools to address the gaps identified.  Made possible with support from the SSHRC funded New Paradigms, New Tools grant for Architectural Conservation at Carleton University.

[Fall 2017]