We are pleased to announce YEE-O 2020 – Year End Exhibition – Online edition for this 2019-2020 academic year. This annual event celebrates the hard work and creative achievements of over 500 undergraduate and graduate students from every unit and level in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Manitoba. Unfortunately, COVID-19 led to the cancellation of this in-person event, but sharing and celebrating student achievements must go on!
Fall 2019
Winter 2020
2018-2019
Lost in a Lifetime
Dead Ice in this, our Anthropogenic Century
Instructor: Herbert Enns
In my introduction to the studio brief for ‘Walking on the Moon’ last year I noted the thirteen glaciers of Iceland. I was right, but I was wrong – there were fourteen (14) a mere decade ago. Missing from the inventory was Okjökull, a small glacier at times visible from Reykjavik. But today I am right. Okjökull has become what the glaciologists refer to as Dead Ice – it is no longer moving. To mark the occasion of its death a plaque was fixed to the volcano beneath the former glacier in August 2019 with an inscription by the Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason:
Bréf til framtíðarinnar
A Letter to the Future
Ok er fyrsti nafnkunni jökullinn til að missa titil sinn.
Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as glacier.
Á næstu 200 árum er tilð að allir jöklar landsins fari sōmu leið.
In the next 200 years all our main glaciers are expected to follow the same path.
Betta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum
This monument is to acknowledge that we know
hvað er að gerast of hvað þarf að gera.
what is happening and what needs to be done.
Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.
Only you know if we did it.
August 2019
415 ppm CO2”1
Dedication written by Andri Snaer Magnuson
The Icelandic glaciers – like the Greenland Ice Cap, the whole of Antarctica and our own Columbia Icefields in the Rocky Mountains – are failing in our lifetime. We are witnesses to the impacts and outcomes of our own actions – this is what anthropogenic means. The consequences were described and registered by Andri Snaer Magnason in marking CO2 levels in the atmosphere on 19 August 2019 at 415 ppm. His carbon benchmark Bréf til framtíðarinnar (A Letter to the Future) is notification by indisputable evidence of climatic transformation in our time. As Magnasson writes, “… The melting of the glaciers is an issue all future generations will have to deal with and adapt to. As the glaciers are not vanishing and becoming nothing, they are becoming a rising ocean that will come splashing at the city gates of the world. “2 By the year 2220 – two hundred years from now – it is expected that Iceland’s glaciers will be gone.
The foundational theme for this studio is architecture’s potential for a living response to geographic, geological and environmental transformation – interleaving structure with land formations, coexisting in shifting landscapes (the glaciers of Iceland move to the oceans by gravity and recede by melting), forms shaped by wind flows and the extraction, capture, storage and distribution energy from the glaciers, from the earth and from the weak sub-arctic sun.
The overwhelming response to time spent on the land, the glaciers and by the ocean is one of beauty – beauty exemplified in structure, landform, space, and light. It is merciful (sympathetic, gracious, benevolent) and redemptive. As such a second theme was our search for beauty we will explore the conjunction of the two sensations of light and sound with the participation of Prof. Örjan Sandred, students from his electronic music composition and spatial audio seminar. This involved joining us on the field trip, hosting of several joint seminars and preparing a shared installation in the School of Music.
Redefining Tragedy: Jökulhlaups as opportunity
Tali Budman
Lucas Druet
Sounds from a Safe Harbour: Reykjavik, Iceland
Instructor: Herbert Enns
The 2019-20 MI-Studios 5 & 6 were created to explore regional and urban site characteristics. Site influences on building design included geology, topography, geophysical form, and environmental considerations – wind, water, weather, and time. Our research led to new abilities in synthesizing geophysical, environmental and climatic influences with architectural design. Sites were located across Western Iceland in the municipalities of Árneshreppur, Norður-Ísafjarðarsýsla, Barðastrandarsýsla and Súðavíkurhreppur in the West Fjords; Snæfellsbær to the west, and Rangárvallasýsla on the south coast. Students composed individual programs related to loosely described an Icelandic School of Music, and – as we now realize, and inclusive of all new modes of music creation in analogue and digital spheres – understood as a School of Sound. Their on-site approach was highly participatory and experiential. Together with three electro-acoustic music composition students they immersed themselves in the regional soundscapes through audio production, sonic capture, physical ‘probes’ and performances. The night recording in the concrete tank at Djupavik, leaning into a blizzard on the western slopes of Langjókull, and cutting/crushing black ice under the south coast sand storms were other-worldly encounters.
These experiences and exercises with the a Swedish composer, a Canadian geologist, an an Icelandic explorer led to a greater understanding of regional climatic and geographic contexts. An important outcome was the assembly of a supporting Program Document of collected research forming the evidentiary basis for speculative situational explorations and creative internal organization, experimental materials, and inventive structure.
The first term situational research and corroborating involvement with weather and land will continued to inspire the architecture of the Wintere Term Sounds from a Safe Harbour project in Reykjavik. A number of metaphors were imaginable. The foremost inclination is to bring the outside in – creating channels and spaces within the proposed structure that play a mnemonic role, creating a sense of an impermanent and everchanging light-land interchange. Our preoccupation with light diffusion is suggestive of transformative experiential devices. Inherent to the theme of architecture and sound is the configuration of spaces that amplify and augment or dampen and mute sound (pressure) and reverberation through form and material. In that sense the building will be musical and comprised of sonic chambers alive and resonating with instruments, voices, and technologies – analogue and digital, singular and in collaboration.
In Reykjavik the fundamentals of urban design require both a response to the larger urban context and the consideration of the harbour as a very real and present influence linking the city to the sea. Having rebounded from the financial collapse of 2008, Reykjavik is in a period of aggressive development in the downtown precinct, much of it related to tourism. Increasing emphasis is being placed on the creative sector now recognized as a significant aspect of Iceland’s economic recovery and expansion. This project outlines strategies for expanding a cultural presence that can coexist with historic uses – particularly in consideration of the industrial working harbour.
Reykjavik School of Sound
Laurie Aftanas
The concept of the building is to engage the tourists to visit the building by providing a transparent main floor so people can see whats going on, and to provide small venues and performance in the existing Reykjavik music scene. The buildings form extrudes from the city and out like a boat from the harbour. Inspired by conditions like old wooden boats, ropes, wooden docks, the curves in boats and the local music scene. The school of sound consist of 3 performance spaces, music rooms, library, restaurant, dorms, workshop, a study hall and offices. An outdoor performance area and a new board walk is on the site.
Reykjavík Harbour – School of Music
“Sounds of a Safe Harbour”
Jonathan Bailes
This project speaks to the disconnection between the many facets that coexist within the Reykjavík Old Harbour and the potentials of this area. The introduction of a school of music is a way of creating social and programmatic integration. The building proposed is multi-layered structure that undulates like the surface of a landscape, parallel to the ship maintenance yard. Along the widely open surfaces, inside and outside of the building, people interact with the movement of the undulated floors, and roof systems that flow throughout the spaces.
Sounds From A Safe Harbour
Tali Budman
The project, a school of sound in Reykjavik’s old harbor, had the aim of allowing for its circulation to act as a guide for the rituals that would be performed within that space. The marine industry forms part of the city’s identity, while the steel and the history it pertains are familiar to the people of Iceland. Recycling old fish oil tanks and re-using the material raised the potential in objects within the city, allowing for the steel to assume a new significance. Ultimately, the use of materials in combination with its intentional development of rituals would aid in the students’ creativity and reflection while strengthening their sense of place within the building and the city.
Reykjavík Tónlistarmiðstöð (Music Development Centre)
Lucas Druet
Icelandic musicians have achieved acclaim on the world stage with their globally influenced yet culturally unique sound. However, in the country’s capital of Reykjavík, musicians struggle to access spaces to rehearse, find small venues to promote local talent, and meet other aspiring and eager musicians. Reykjavík’s Old Harbour is a hybridized urban space where marine industry, tourism, arts and culture grow together. This project aims to fulfill the needs of local aspiring and accomplished musicians in a way that engages the public, facilitates industry functions, and promotes talent to locals and tourists alike. The highly public music development centre stretches out over a concrete infill pier and borrows the harbour’s industrial aesthetic of visual noise to produce a structurally expressive form.
Reykjavik School of Sound
Emily Jones
The Reykjavik School of Sound, located in the Reykjavik harbour in Iceland, provides a variety of musical exploratory spaces which can be easily adapted to the needs of the user. With the primary goal of the school being a place for creativity and playfulness, the campus was developed as a series of additive modules floating in the safe harbour, reflecting the fluidity of the site. Using modular design allowed variation in different spaces’ size and geometry, creating opportunity for both socialization and recluse.
Reykjavik School of Music
Andria Langi
This project proposes a design of the School of Music in the harbor area of Reykjavik which will be affected by the urban aspects and the impact of the harbor. The boat is one of the inspirations in making shapes and spaces that can support the function of the music school. The composition of the boat also consists of two modules that are lifted from the ground floor to achieve flexibility and connect the building with the outside community. This boat module is also wrapped in a cage made of steel braces that are not only useful for subtle the massive building to its surroundings but also acts as a structural element of the building that supports the floating boat using a cable suspension system. One of the main concerns of the whole design is how the boats and the building can be connected one to another, also inside and out, so various kinds of elements for accessibility are applied to the building.
Reykjavík Experimental Music Centre
Mackenzie Skoczylas
Working on the harbor front in Iceland, the project aims to engage the public realm of the walkable city to feed the life of the building and intertwine the daily happenings of a passer-by with the rich culture of experimental Icelandic music. The building connects to the main pier via boardwalk which allows circulation to flow freely underneath ships being maintained in the shipyard while approaching the gem of a building that allows a transparency within through the cast glass channel walls. The building creates areas of reflection as well as movement within the performance space, influenced by the organic natures of the site and sea.
Walking on the Moon:
Exploring Iceland’s Glacial Landscapes at LANGJÖKULL & VATNAJÖKULL
Exhibition in the RÁÐHÚS REYKJAVÍKUR, Reykjavik, Iceland, October 16 – 21, 2019
Instructor: Herbert Enns
The work of the Department of Architecture 2019 Master’s I Walking on the Moon studio was exhibited in Reykjavik City Hall in October 2019. We want to thank the many people who supported our research, site visit, and the exhibition.
Gunnar Guðjónsson first suggested a collaboration with the guides of Iceland, and introduced us to their interest in more fully realizing the possibilities of interaction with – and access to – Iceland’s high icefields. His enthusiasm, deep knowledge and adventurous spirit continue to be an inspiration to us all.
A discussion about Iceland and space exploration was originated by Daniel Leeb. This perspective posited a big question for us – to paraphrase The Clash . . . “Should we stay or should be go now?”.The vulnerability and fragility of the Earth and our life on it was cast amongst the clashing urges of survival and the desire to escape.
We want to thank Tanis Paul, a graduate of the University of Manitoba Department of Architecture who has helped organize our Field Trips for her boundless commitment to the University of Manitoba architecture students. We appreciate her as much for being such a powerful and unwavering ambassador for Iceland and for all things Icelandic, and an emissary between Manitoba (New Iceland) and the independent people who inhabit this remote and wind-swept cultural centre in the North Atlantic.
This exhibition was presented in honour of Ottó Einarsson, our faithful guide for many years.
He was considerate, kind, observant, intelligent, patient, and curious, and ever the adventurer.
Steve Christer, BA (Hons) AADip FAÍ Founding Partner, Studio Granda, Reykjavik
Dr. James Gardner Ph.D. Former University of Manitoba V.P. (Academic) & Provost, & Professor Emeritus
Gunnar Guðjónsson Expert Glacier Guide, Ice Cave Explorer, Mariner
Jón Gull Ice Cave Guide
Pat Hanson FRAIC OAA AAA Owner, GH3, Toronto
Daniel Leeb Icelandic Space Agency
Carson McCance MAA, MRAIC, Project Architect, LM
Tanis Paul B.ES., M.Arch., Man., Director of Design, Abode Architecture Co., UK
Míó (Horður) Ólafsson Víðgelmir Cave Owner / Guide
Massimo Santanicchia Director, Icelandic University of the Arts [Listaháskóli Íslands], Architecture
Valgeir Thorvaldsson Director, Vesturfarasetrið, the Icelandic Emigration Center at Hofsós
GRAYLINE TOURS
KEX HOSTEL
ERIC THE RED GUESTHOUSE
EMBASSY OF CANADA TO ICELAND
RÁÐHÚS REYKJAVÍKUR
1 Dedication written by Andri Snaer Magnason
http://www.andrimagnason.com/dreamland/2019/07/ok-glacier-in-memoriam-a-letter-to-the-future/
accessed 2019.08.17
2 http://player.fm/time-senstive-podcast/andri-snaer-magnason-on-how-time-and-water-explain-the-climate (accessed 21 August 2019)