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 WORKshop is pleased to announce in collaboration with the Royal Ontario Museum the following lecture:
Designing
with Scent: The Xi’an Scent Garden
Friday,
September 17, 7-8 pm
Royal Ontario Museum: Signy and Cléophée Eaton Theatre
Following
the lecture, you are invited to attend a reception at WORKshop,
80
Bloor St. W., Lower Concourse, 8:30-10 pm.
Immersive
environments employing scent are being designed by University of
Toronto architecture professors Rodolphe el-Khoury and Robert Levit.
Their unique public scent garden for the ancient capital of Xi’an,
China, is under construction as part of that city’s 2011 World
Horticultural Exposition. The Xi’an Scent Garden project and an
accompanying “Scent Squadron” (designed by the firm of KHOURY
LEVIT FONG and evoking the historic Terracotta Warriors period), are
on display at WORKshop, 80 Bloor St. W., to October 2. El-Khoury and
Levit reveal how they emphasize olfactory experience as an
integrative design element, orchestrating fragrances with buildings,
landscapes, and today’s digital technologies.
Speakers:
Rodolphe
el-Khoury is an award winning designer and author of critically
acclaimed books on the history and theory of architecture. He is
Associate Professor at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels
Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design and principal at
KHOURY LEVIT FONG.
Robert
Levit, whose architecture, urban design, housing projects and
critical essays have been recognized internationally, is Associate
Professor at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of
Architecture, Landscape, and Design and principal at KHOURY LEVIT
FONG.
Free
event.
Please
RSVP to attend the lecture by clicking on the following link:http://www.rom.on.ca/programs/lectures/index.php?cat_id=1&ref=showinfo&prev_ref=searchresult&program_id=6373&keyword=scent&audience_ids
SCENTSCAPES: IMMERSIVE ENVIRONMENTS INSPIRED BY XI'AN
WORKshop will present its second exhibition from July 9th through
October 2nd. Designed by the Toronto architecture firm Khoury Levit
Fong, Scentscapes: Immersive Environments Inspired by Xi’an, will feature drawings of a
public garden currently under construction in one of China’s ancient
capitals, Xi’an, along with a site-specific installation titled Scent
Squadron. The team of Khoury Levit Fong, with students Drew Adams, James Dixon,
Lindsay Hochman, Fadi Masoud, Khalid al-Nasser, and Farhana Sharmin will install a ‘vaulted pine
forest,’ an array of suspended scent-dispensing vials. The title ’Scent
Squadron’ obliquely invokes the famous 210-209 BC Terracotta Army near
Xi’an, one of the world’s great works of funerary art. WORKshop’s
Scentscapes is being presented simultaneously with the Royal Ontario
Museum’s nearby exhibition, The Warrior Emperor and China’s Terracotta
Army, which runs from June 26, 2010 to January 02, 2011. Download PDF
NEW STAFF APPOINTMENTS
WORKshop is pleased to announce that Brent Cordner has joined the studio as a consultant and designer on various projects. A native of Montreal, Brent studied at Bowdoin College in Maine before completing a Bachelor of Architecture degree at the University of Toronto. His furniture designs have been exhibited and published internationally, and in 2002 his Felt chair for Keilhauer received 'Best in Show' for innovation at NEOCON. Cleo Buster started in May as WORKshop's Manager and Design Assistant. Cleo received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2003 and is currently completing her thesis on flexible housing design in the University of Toronto's Master of Architecture program.
GEHRY-DESIGNED RECEPTION DESK & STORAGE CABINET
In the fall of 2009, WORKshop was fortunate to acquire a reception desk
and storage unit designed by architect Frank Gehry in 1988 for the
Toronto offices of Chiat/Day, a Los Angeles-based advertising agency.
The offices occupied the 6th and 7th floors of a building at
Harbourfront, near the gritty Gardiner Expressway. Chiat/Day was Gehry’s
first project in Toronto, preceding the Art Gallery of Ontario
expansion by nearly 20 years. These highly abstract, robust, and
imaginative plywood and industrial felt pieces by Gehry demonstrate
preoccupations with material experimentation akin to those of the Ming
Period. Originally made by Redline Design, the reception desk and
storage cabinet were refurbished by Arthur Billard of Catfish Design
Build and permanently installed at WORKshop on the occasion of it's
opening MING MODERN exhibition.
MING MODERN AT WORKshop
WORKshop presented its first exhibition, MING MODERN, in the winter of
2010. Curated by Larry Wayne Richards, WORKshop's Artistic Director, the
exhibition ran from February through April on the Lower Concourse Level
at 80 Bloor Street West. The opening exhibition was inspired by the
Chinese Ming period (1368 - 1644) and featured contemporary furniture,
art, and objects for the home by Blanc de Chine (Hong Kong),
Brent Cordner (Toronto), EXH Design (Shanghai), Andrew
Jones (Toronto), Katherine Xiao Kejia (Beijing), Morris
Lum (Toronto), Jesse Jackson (Toronto), Elena Manferdini
(Los Angeles), MAP OFFICE (Hong Kong), Neri & Hu
(Shanghai), and Gord Peteran (Toronto). As well, projects by
Architecture students at the University of Toronto were included.
SHOE TOWER DESIGN COMPETITION
In November of 2009, WORKshop announced the winners in Stage
Two of the S-TOWER student design competition. The shoe tower design by
Omri Menashe was selected by the jury as the winner with an award of $500. An award of $300 was presented
to the runner-up, Peter Sherratt. At the time of the competition, Mr. Menashe was a fourth-year,
undergraduate student in the B.A. Architectural Studies program and Mr. Sherratt was a third-year, graduate student in the
Master of Architecture program. The other three finalists were Nelson
Cheng, the team of Nicholas Gosselin and Tyler Murray, and Xian Chi. The three-member jury (Andrew Jones, Larry Wayne Richards, Robin Speke)
was pleased with the Stage Two responses from the five finalists that
submitted and recognized the tremendous amount of work that the various individuals put into their submissions. The winning and runner-up shoe towers, along with the other three
finalists, were displayed as part of WORKshop's opening
exhibition at 80 Bloor Street West during the winter of 2010.
WORKshop EXPLORATIONS / PROJECT 1
Project 1, The Chinese Approach to Modernity: Exploring Furniture Design, was presented at the WORKshop in January of 2009 by James Ross Lennox in conjunction with his independent studies on furniture at the University of Toronto. Born in Canada in 1972, Lennox received an undergraduate degree in Architectural Science from Ryerson University in 1999 and lived in Bejing for five years before admission to the Master of Architecture professional program in the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. Download PDF
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