AIA Canada Journal: Canadian educators on housing affordability
Architectural education is an important part of becoming an architect. It provides a foundation in art and architectural history, basic concepts of design, and foundational technical knowledge. It promotes critical thinking, examines social and economic complexities, and encourages creativity and teamwork. I may be biased, but I believe the camaraderie and pride that are part of architectural students’ design studio experience are unmatched by any other educational program.
In this issue of the AIA Canada Journal, Pauline Thimm, Hannah Allawi and I reached out to schools of architecture from across the country. Our conversations centred on research themes in today’s design studios, with a focus on housing affordability. Students and faculties are actively engaging in challenging the status quo on the shortage of housing. It takes a village to derive plausible solutions—and schools of architecture across the country are united in bringing their voices and minds to this pressing issue. In a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council-supported partnership, AIA Canada Society is also actively participating in research on designing inclusive, sustainable and healthy cities.
We want to thank all the educators who took time to speak with us and provide their invaluable insights.
-Dora Ng, AIA Canada Society President
Rick Haldenby
Professor, School of Architecture, University of Waterloo
Rick Haldenby, FRAIC, served as Director of the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo from 1988 to 2013, and founded the Waterloo Rome Program in 1979. Among many accomplishments, Haldenby was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2021, and has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Council of University Schools of Architecture, the Special Jury Prize at the Kitchener Waterloo Arts Awards, and the Dr. Jean Steckle Award for Heritage Education from the Waterloo Regional Heritage Foundation.
Q: Kitchener-Waterloo is known as a university town that is home to top Ontario post-secondary institutions. Tell us a bit about the twin cities.
A: The Waterloo Region’s industrial development began with the arrival of German-speaking immigrants in the 19th century. Its cities were literally “founded on factories.” Its prosperity was influenced by a rail-based transport system. In the late 19th century, the extension of the Grand Trunk Railway contributed to the industrialization of the area. In the 1950s, visionary community leaders made concerted efforts to build educational infrastructure, and in just a few years created the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University and Conestoga College. The region experienced significant growth in manufacturing industries, insurance companies, and high-tech businesses over time. Home to two universities and a college, it is an education hub that attracts talents and businesses, which increases the demand for housing for students and families. The once-suburban neighbourhood of Northdale, surrounded by these post-secondary institutions, saw a surge in student population in the early 2000s, including a large percentage of international students. We saw a building boom to increase medium-density housing like stacked townhomes and row houses, as well as taller buildings up to 30+ stories in what was once a primarily low-density town.
Q: Like the building boom in Waterloo, we saw many residential high-rises going up in the GTA, but this growth still does not adequately address housing demand. In many cities across Canada, there are unprecedented housing issues including affordability and homelessness. What do you see emerging as key areas of interest and inquiry among students at your school? Is housing one of them?
A: Connection between affordability and homelessness is not a one-to-one problem. The housing crisis can have many dimensions. In our undergraduate design studios, we are laying the groundwork for approaches to affordability, environmental responsibility and social justice. Many of my colleagues and graduate students at the University of Waterloo are involved in various research studies, exhibitions and campaigns, including the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. We also try to keep a balance to cover diverse topics in architecture, including housing. Second- and third-year design studios focus on urban intensification amid the building boom, enabling students to discuss ideas for keeping cities habitable and attractive for future growth. Design studios have also worked with the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity to support the ambitious program to build affordable housing for families in need.
In partnership with the City of Cambridge, Waterloo architecture students designed and built tiny homes as prototypes for emergency shelter. Photo courtesy University of Waterloo
Q: Any examples of collaboration between studio projects and practicing professionals in tackling the housing crisis?
A: Through collaboration and communication with the community, the School of Architecture has engaged with social housing agencies, municipality planning authorities, Indigenous groups and aging-in-place consultants to develop housing solutions for a diverse population including seniors. Moving the School of Architecture from Waterloo to Cambridge in 2004 was a communal project with great support from the City of Cambridge. Occupying the repurposed silk mill in Cambridge, the school aims to be the design campus for the city to allow exchange of creative ideas and intellectual stimulation. Since the move, we have had many opportunities to collaborate and work closely with the municipality. The Tiny Homes project is an initiative in partnership with the City of Cambridge, whereby Waterloo architecture students were engaged to design and build prototype tiny homes that offer practical, cost-effective and dignified emergency housing solutions. It is an example of collaboration that makes a meaningful difference.
Photo by Danielle Sneesby
Shauna Mallory-Hill
Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba
Shauna Mallory-Hill, PhD, is currently Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Research at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture. Her 25-year-long career spans teaching, research and advocacy, with a focus on building systems, universal and sustainable design, as well as building performance evaluation. Her sponsored research includes accessible design, along with post-occupancy work on how sustainably designed environments impact human health and productivity.
Q: How is The University of Manitoba Faculty of Architecturespecifically engaging in design explorations addressing housing?
A: In addition to hosting public events and delivering focused design studios, we are actively engaged and support research collaborations including funded research with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Counciland the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. We are also committed to partnering and working with communities.
In 2022, U of M professor Lancelot Coar’s undergraduate studio engaged with One House Many Nations to develop a mobile design and construction trailer for on-site design-build work. Photo by Lancelot Coar
One House Many Nationsoriginally started as a grassroots movement to shed light on the housing crisis faced by Indigenous communities. For the past four years, OHMN, led by Dr. Alex Wilson and Sylvia McAdam, has been working with faculty and students from FAUM, houseless First Nations youth, and students at Saskatoon’s Nutana Collegiate to design and construct small, affordable homes that are trucked to remote Indigenous communities in Northern Saskatchewan. After a house is delivered, it is occupied by one of the youth participants. Each year, another house is built, informed by post-occupancy data that was collected on the previous year’s house. First Nations youth participants have learned to advocate for community needs while gaining skills and knowledge about home-building and maintenance. Lancelot Coar’s 2022 undergraduate architecture studio engaged with OHMN to create a mobile design lab that can be brought onsite to design-build in First Nations communities. OHMN’s work was exhibited at the Canadian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2023.
Q: What are key areas of interest and inquiry among students at your school? Is housing one of them?
A: We are seeing that this generation is increasingly concerned about what is happening to the world—concerns about sustainability, housing, and food deserts are paramount. Students want to work on things that are meaningful. Students also really embrace hands-on learning. Any time students are encouraged and supported to engage with community, they feel like they are making a difference.
Here in Winnipeg, we can all see the encampments of the unhoused. It is apparent that there is work to do to solve this dilemma.This past year, one of our housing-themed studios worked with a local grassroots organization, St. Boniface Street Links, in the design and construction of a prototype transitional house as a safer interim housing solution. This housing project ultimately was built and included as part of the annual Warming Huts design competition at the Forks.
Q: Are there any barriers to collaborating in this way, involving practitioners and real community groups?
A: We often get groups who approach us to collaborate. We need to be clear that we are not providing a design service, but we are committed to the exploration of ideas and working together on important problems.
It is important to me that doing housing research work in collaboration with Indigenous communities is respectful, responsible and reciprocal. Ensuring that some benefit of the research stays with the community is crucial, given the long history of research involving Indigenous populations where this did not happen. A willingness to listen and understand community priorities and context—and adapt—is key. It can be difficult for some to have enough capacity to deal with added administration; a local liaison is helpful.
The Wîkiwin student-built house is part of an ongoing collaboration with Kawéchiwasik Development Corporation at York Factory First Nation. Photo by Shauna Mallory-Hill
Q: Some of your current research and design work is supported by the CMHC Housing Supply Challenge. Can you tell us a bit about that project?
A: The CMHC funding in part supports the Wîkiwin Training Enterprise of York Factory First Nation project, geared to building healthy homes by leveraging local resources and tradespeople in collaboration with the Kawéchiwasik Development Corporation. The purpose is to provide design education and construction skills in the northern communities where they are needed. A key goal is that kids won’t need to leave their communities to get skills, and communities can develop capacity to increase their self-sufficiency.
In collaboration with FAUM, the project will include a comprehensive education model based on a co-created curriculum, training programs, housing designs and research on building materials. Students earn micro-credentials through distance education to get basic training in design and construction, or have the opportunity to work as research assistants to assist with collection of data, such as indoor air quality.
Focusing on sustainable construction techniques, using local materials like stone and wood, the initiative promises to employ residents, cut production costs, and enhance housing quality. Additionally, the creation of a year-round skilled trades school facility and housing for students and teachers will boost the local labour force.
Stage 2 of the project involves the building of the Wîkiwin skilled trades training and research facility and dormitory. This phase will also see the expansion of the educational curriculum in partnership with the University of Manitoba, ultimately increasing the labour force capacity of York Factory First Nation and creating more opportunities for its youth.
Sasha Tsenkova
Professor of Planning and Director of the Cities, Policy & Planning Lab at the School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape, University of Calgary
Sasha Tsenkova, PhD, is a professor at the School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape at the University of Calgary. With a background in architecture, urbanism, and planning, her work spans over 30 years of research, teaching, and professional practice, focusing on creating more inclusive and sustainable urban environments. She is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Planners and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada/Academy of Social Sciences.
Q: Major cities across Canada are seeing unprecedented housing issues. As an educator, what have you seen in research or studio projects that tackle these issues?
A: We are a nation of suburban homeowners, where much of the wealth creation in the urban system is driven by investment in housing. Today, income and wealth inequality in Canadian cities is higher than ever before, which is exacerbated by the suburban homeownership model. In cities, newcomers to the housing market—young and old—face incredible affordability constraints. Homelessness has grown exponentially and homeownership is not within the reach of the middle class. In the design world, we must begin to address, through systemic intervention, these challenges. Many of our research and studio projects focus on sustainable urbanism through designs that explore strategies to provide affordable homes across the income spectrum and embrace different types of housing.
We cannot continue to replicate a model of postwar city building that no longer serves the needs of the people. We encourage students to learn from successful cities in Europe, Latin America, and the United States, where a more systematic approach to neighbourhood design and redevelopment allows various types of housing to be built along the same street within a community. This is a different approach to growth premised on urban regeneration and intensification, where people come before cars and community identity evolves over time.
Q: Any examples of collaboration between studio projects and practicing professionals in tackling the housing crisis?
A: We focus on community-engaged scholarship, research and teaching at SAPL. Integration with communities of practice is necessary, but so is a direct relationship with clients, so that we situate our studio projects in the real-world. The housing crisis is multi-faceted and future professionals need to be aware of the complexity of design intervention—solutions require a nexus of policy, planning and design approaches. In a graduate school, we must prepare aspiring designers, architects and planners to embrace these challenges.
The interface with critical practice is the ultimate test for us to remain relevant and committed to innovation and excellence within the realm of what we can control. Studio teaching needs to address housing affordability in a systematic way, as it will make a critical difference within Canadian society and will define the future of our cities. This requires a much stronger emphasis on sustainable urbanism and community-based projects.
Q: What policies do you feel cities in Canada should create or address to aid in addressing the housing crisis and homelessness?
A: The planning regulation, upzoning, and permitting processes can be improved to enhance infill housing, gentle density and inner-city intensification. Recognizing that cities and neighbourhoods need to be built for people and not for cars requires a focus on transit-oriented development in strategic locations where low-density retail, industrial and housing sites can be redeveloped to become mixed-use urban villages with a variety of housing types. Changes to minimum parking standards and lot coverage can energize the infusion of missing middle housing to create opportunities for multi-generational living, cohousing and home sharing with renters. But the real difference in addressing the homelessness and affordability crisis is the renewed investment into affordable housing through partnerships of federal, provincial and municipal governments with non-profit organizations. We need to grow this segment of the housing market and to make sure that it is an integral part of our urban neighbourhoods through the design process.
Q: What role do you think schools of architecture and design have in tackling the housing crisis in Canada?
A: We need to make a major commitment to building knowledge and capacity that focuses on solutions to the housing crisis in our curriculum. Design thinking is premised on innovation; it is part of the competency, creativity and collaboration that we try to instill in future professionals. Architects today are absent from the design of neighbourhoods on the periphery of our cities. We need to bring back that creativity and the knowledge of architects, planners, and designers, and develop the prototypes that will provide solutions to the housing crisis.
SAPL is moving downtown so that we can be a part of downtown rebuilding and innovation. Our adaptive reuse of existing office space in Calgary’s downtown will provide opportunities to connect to local businesses and residents and offer immersion in city life that is critical for our students. Our school will be a living urban design lab, where we embrace social justice, community-inspired design work and collaborate with different communities of practice to demonstrate viable solutions for changing cities and changing societies.
Sara Stevens
Associate Professor & Chair – Urban Design at the School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture, University of British Columbia
Sara Stevens is an architectural historian and Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Her book Developing Expertisestudies real estate development in 20th-century American cities. She is a member of the collective Architects Against Housing Alienation, curators of the Canada Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.
Q: Major cities across Canada are seeing unprecedented housing issues. As an educator, what have you seen in research or studio projects that tackle these issues?
A: There are so many great examples of design studios in Canada that are looking at housing challenges, such as the ‘Not for Sale’ study abroad course on contemporary housing that recently won the ACSA’s 2024 Architectural Education Award. McGill has a long history of housing research with the Minimum Cost Housing Group, which was the subject of a recent exhibition curated by Ipek Türeli. The work of Shawn Bailey and Lancelot Coar at the University of Manitoba is bringing really innovative pedagogy to the question of housing for Indigenous communities to design schools.
Q: Any examples of collaboration between studio projects and practicing professionals in tackling the housing crisis?
A: At UBC, questions around missing middle housing brought forth a collaboration between Haeccity Studio Architects and UBC students that resulted in a publication of the students’ work, co-sponsored by SALA and the Urbanarium, an organization in Vancouver that is a forum for sharing ideas about city building, particularly around climate change and housing affordability. The Urbananium’s design competitions have focused on missing middle housing, mixed-use neighbourhoods, and the codes and regulations that are barriers to housing affordability. Their current competition, Decoding Timber Towers, is focused on prefab and mass timber housing.
Q: What policies do you feel cities in Canada should create or address to aid in the housing crisis and homelessness?
A: I think that Canada needs to take UNDRIP and the TRC Calls to Action seriously. We can’t separate the issue of housing for Indigenous people, and the history of colonization that it’s part of, from the housing challenges everyone else faces. The United Nations Housing as a Human Right work is a great resource on this, as their work also points to the problems of financialization and the effect this has had on renters, social housing, and un-housed folks.
The Land Back Courtyard was part of the Not For Sale exhibition at the Canada Pavilion in the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. Photo by Maris Mezulis
Q: What role do you think schools of architecture and design have in tackling the housing crisis in Canada?
A: Schools of architecture and design can play an important role by educating students about the role of architects in the housing crisis in Canada. We need the next generation of architects to understand that they have a part to play. It’s not an issue that can be solved through policy and the market alone: their expertise in design, which of course touches policy and works with the private sector, is inherently part of this issue.
To develop deeper conversations around this, I am working with collaborators in the collective Architects Against Housing Alienation to organize a super-studio across Canada for the next school yearcalled “End Housing Alienation Now!” that is inviting all schools of architecture to run studios on a shared set of themes and principles.We have commitments from almost all the schools already, and have hosted a number of conversations with people from the schools to develop how this will work, balancing what is shared vs. independent, the different schedules and levels of students, etc.
For these studios, one ambition is that the studios work with local activists, advocates, and professional practices to show students how important these kinds of collaborations can be, and how important embedded local knowledge is. We hope to share resources and create opportunities for students to connect across geographies to ensure that many, many people with lots of passion and expertise are focused on this topic.
As appeared in the June 2025 issue of Canadian Architect magazine
The post AIA Canada Journal: Canadian educators on housing affordability appeared first on Canadian Architect.
#aia #canada #journal #canadian #educatorsAIA Canada Journal: Canadian educators on housing affordability
Architectural education is an important part of becoming an architect. It provides a foundation in art and architectural history, basic concepts of design, and foundational technical knowledge. It promotes critical thinking, examines social and economic complexities, and encourages creativity and teamwork. I may be biased, but I believe the camaraderie and pride that are part of architectural students’ design studio experience are unmatched by any other educational program.
In this issue of the AIA Canada Journal, Pauline Thimm, Hannah Allawi and I reached out to schools of architecture from across the country. Our conversations centred on research themes in today’s design studios, with a focus on housing affordability. Students and faculties are actively engaging in challenging the status quo on the shortage of housing. It takes a village to derive plausible solutions—and schools of architecture across the country are united in bringing their voices and minds to this pressing issue. In a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council-supported partnership, AIA Canada Society is also actively participating in research on designing inclusive, sustainable and healthy cities.
We want to thank all the educators who took time to speak with us and provide their invaluable insights.
-Dora Ng, AIA Canada Society President
Rick Haldenby
Professor, School of Architecture, University of Waterloo
Rick Haldenby, FRAIC, served as Director of the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo from 1988 to 2013, and founded the Waterloo Rome Program in 1979. Among many accomplishments, Haldenby was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2021, and has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Council of University Schools of Architecture, the Special Jury Prize at the Kitchener Waterloo Arts Awards, and the Dr. Jean Steckle Award for Heritage Education from the Waterloo Regional Heritage Foundation.
Q: Kitchener-Waterloo is known as a university town that is home to top Ontario post-secondary institutions. Tell us a bit about the twin cities.
A: The Waterloo Region’s industrial development began with the arrival of German-speaking immigrants in the 19th century. Its cities were literally “founded on factories.” Its prosperity was influenced by a rail-based transport system. In the late 19th century, the extension of the Grand Trunk Railway contributed to the industrialization of the area. In the 1950s, visionary community leaders made concerted efforts to build educational infrastructure, and in just a few years created the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University and Conestoga College. The region experienced significant growth in manufacturing industries, insurance companies, and high-tech businesses over time. Home to two universities and a college, it is an education hub that attracts talents and businesses, which increases the demand for housing for students and families. The once-suburban neighbourhood of Northdale, surrounded by these post-secondary institutions, saw a surge in student population in the early 2000s, including a large percentage of international students. We saw a building boom to increase medium-density housing like stacked townhomes and row houses, as well as taller buildings up to 30+ stories in what was once a primarily low-density town.
Q: Like the building boom in Waterloo, we saw many residential high-rises going up in the GTA, but this growth still does not adequately address housing demand. In many cities across Canada, there are unprecedented housing issues including affordability and homelessness. What do you see emerging as key areas of interest and inquiry among students at your school? Is housing one of them?
A: Connection between affordability and homelessness is not a one-to-one problem. The housing crisis can have many dimensions. In our undergraduate design studios, we are laying the groundwork for approaches to affordability, environmental responsibility and social justice. Many of my colleagues and graduate students at the University of Waterloo are involved in various research studies, exhibitions and campaigns, including the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. We also try to keep a balance to cover diverse topics in architecture, including housing. Second- and third-year design studios focus on urban intensification amid the building boom, enabling students to discuss ideas for keeping cities habitable and attractive for future growth. Design studios have also worked with the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity to support the ambitious program to build affordable housing for families in need.
In partnership with the City of Cambridge, Waterloo architecture students designed and built tiny homes as prototypes for emergency shelter. Photo courtesy University of Waterloo
Q: Any examples of collaboration between studio projects and practicing professionals in tackling the housing crisis?
A: Through collaboration and communication with the community, the School of Architecture has engaged with social housing agencies, municipality planning authorities, Indigenous groups and aging-in-place consultants to develop housing solutions for a diverse population including seniors. Moving the School of Architecture from Waterloo to Cambridge in 2004 was a communal project with great support from the City of Cambridge. Occupying the repurposed silk mill in Cambridge, the school aims to be the design campus for the city to allow exchange of creative ideas and intellectual stimulation. Since the move, we have had many opportunities to collaborate and work closely with the municipality. The Tiny Homes project is an initiative in partnership with the City of Cambridge, whereby Waterloo architecture students were engaged to design and build prototype tiny homes that offer practical, cost-effective and dignified emergency housing solutions. It is an example of collaboration that makes a meaningful difference.
Photo by Danielle Sneesby
Shauna Mallory-Hill
Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba
Shauna Mallory-Hill, PhD, is currently Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Research at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture. Her 25-year-long career spans teaching, research and advocacy, with a focus on building systems, universal and sustainable design, as well as building performance evaluation. Her sponsored research includes accessible design, along with post-occupancy work on how sustainably designed environments impact human health and productivity.
Q: How is The University of Manitoba Faculty of Architecturespecifically engaging in design explorations addressing housing?
A: In addition to hosting public events and delivering focused design studios, we are actively engaged and support research collaborations including funded research with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Counciland the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. We are also committed to partnering and working with communities.
In 2022, U of M professor Lancelot Coar’s undergraduate studio engaged with One House Many Nations to develop a mobile design and construction trailer for on-site design-build work. Photo by Lancelot Coar
One House Many Nationsoriginally started as a grassroots movement to shed light on the housing crisis faced by Indigenous communities. For the past four years, OHMN, led by Dr. Alex Wilson and Sylvia McAdam, has been working with faculty and students from FAUM, houseless First Nations youth, and students at Saskatoon’s Nutana Collegiate to design and construct small, affordable homes that are trucked to remote Indigenous communities in Northern Saskatchewan. After a house is delivered, it is occupied by one of the youth participants. Each year, another house is built, informed by post-occupancy data that was collected on the previous year’s house. First Nations youth participants have learned to advocate for community needs while gaining skills and knowledge about home-building and maintenance. Lancelot Coar’s 2022 undergraduate architecture studio engaged with OHMN to create a mobile design lab that can be brought onsite to design-build in First Nations communities. OHMN’s work was exhibited at the Canadian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2023.
Q: What are key areas of interest and inquiry among students at your school? Is housing one of them?
A: We are seeing that this generation is increasingly concerned about what is happening to the world—concerns about sustainability, housing, and food deserts are paramount. Students want to work on things that are meaningful. Students also really embrace hands-on learning. Any time students are encouraged and supported to engage with community, they feel like they are making a difference.
Here in Winnipeg, we can all see the encampments of the unhoused. It is apparent that there is work to do to solve this dilemma.This past year, one of our housing-themed studios worked with a local grassroots organization, St. Boniface Street Links, in the design and construction of a prototype transitional house as a safer interim housing solution. This housing project ultimately was built and included as part of the annual Warming Huts design competition at the Forks.
Q: Are there any barriers to collaborating in this way, involving practitioners and real community groups?
A: We often get groups who approach us to collaborate. We need to be clear that we are not providing a design service, but we are committed to the exploration of ideas and working together on important problems.
It is important to me that doing housing research work in collaboration with Indigenous communities is respectful, responsible and reciprocal. Ensuring that some benefit of the research stays with the community is crucial, given the long history of research involving Indigenous populations where this did not happen. A willingness to listen and understand community priorities and context—and adapt—is key. It can be difficult for some to have enough capacity to deal with added administration; a local liaison is helpful.
The Wîkiwin student-built house is part of an ongoing collaboration with Kawéchiwasik Development Corporation at York Factory First Nation. Photo by Shauna Mallory-Hill
Q: Some of your current research and design work is supported by the CMHC Housing Supply Challenge. Can you tell us a bit about that project?
A: The CMHC funding in part supports the Wîkiwin Training Enterprise of York Factory First Nation project, geared to building healthy homes by leveraging local resources and tradespeople in collaboration with the Kawéchiwasik Development Corporation. The purpose is to provide design education and construction skills in the northern communities where they are needed. A key goal is that kids won’t need to leave their communities to get skills, and communities can develop capacity to increase their self-sufficiency.
In collaboration with FAUM, the project will include a comprehensive education model based on a co-created curriculum, training programs, housing designs and research on building materials. Students earn micro-credentials through distance education to get basic training in design and construction, or have the opportunity to work as research assistants to assist with collection of data, such as indoor air quality.
Focusing on sustainable construction techniques, using local materials like stone and wood, the initiative promises to employ residents, cut production costs, and enhance housing quality. Additionally, the creation of a year-round skilled trades school facility and housing for students and teachers will boost the local labour force.
Stage 2 of the project involves the building of the Wîkiwin skilled trades training and research facility and dormitory. This phase will also see the expansion of the educational curriculum in partnership with the University of Manitoba, ultimately increasing the labour force capacity of York Factory First Nation and creating more opportunities for its youth.
Sasha Tsenkova
Professor of Planning and Director of the Cities, Policy & Planning Lab at the School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape, University of Calgary
Sasha Tsenkova, PhD, is a professor at the School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape at the University of Calgary. With a background in architecture, urbanism, and planning, her work spans over 30 years of research, teaching, and professional practice, focusing on creating more inclusive and sustainable urban environments. She is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Planners and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada/Academy of Social Sciences.
Q: Major cities across Canada are seeing unprecedented housing issues. As an educator, what have you seen in research or studio projects that tackle these issues?
A: We are a nation of suburban homeowners, where much of the wealth creation in the urban system is driven by investment in housing. Today, income and wealth inequality in Canadian cities is higher than ever before, which is exacerbated by the suburban homeownership model. In cities, newcomers to the housing market—young and old—face incredible affordability constraints. Homelessness has grown exponentially and homeownership is not within the reach of the middle class. In the design world, we must begin to address, through systemic intervention, these challenges. Many of our research and studio projects focus on sustainable urbanism through designs that explore strategies to provide affordable homes across the income spectrum and embrace different types of housing.
We cannot continue to replicate a model of postwar city building that no longer serves the needs of the people. We encourage students to learn from successful cities in Europe, Latin America, and the United States, where a more systematic approach to neighbourhood design and redevelopment allows various types of housing to be built along the same street within a community. This is a different approach to growth premised on urban regeneration and intensification, where people come before cars and community identity evolves over time.
Q: Any examples of collaboration between studio projects and practicing professionals in tackling the housing crisis?
A: We focus on community-engaged scholarship, research and teaching at SAPL. Integration with communities of practice is necessary, but so is a direct relationship with clients, so that we situate our studio projects in the real-world. The housing crisis is multi-faceted and future professionals need to be aware of the complexity of design intervention—solutions require a nexus of policy, planning and design approaches. In a graduate school, we must prepare aspiring designers, architects and planners to embrace these challenges.
The interface with critical practice is the ultimate test for us to remain relevant and committed to innovation and excellence within the realm of what we can control. Studio teaching needs to address housing affordability in a systematic way, as it will make a critical difference within Canadian society and will define the future of our cities. This requires a much stronger emphasis on sustainable urbanism and community-based projects.
Q: What policies do you feel cities in Canada should create or address to aid in addressing the housing crisis and homelessness?
A: The planning regulation, upzoning, and permitting processes can be improved to enhance infill housing, gentle density and inner-city intensification. Recognizing that cities and neighbourhoods need to be built for people and not for cars requires a focus on transit-oriented development in strategic locations where low-density retail, industrial and housing sites can be redeveloped to become mixed-use urban villages with a variety of housing types. Changes to minimum parking standards and lot coverage can energize the infusion of missing middle housing to create opportunities for multi-generational living, cohousing and home sharing with renters. But the real difference in addressing the homelessness and affordability crisis is the renewed investment into affordable housing through partnerships of federal, provincial and municipal governments with non-profit organizations. We need to grow this segment of the housing market and to make sure that it is an integral part of our urban neighbourhoods through the design process.
Q: What role do you think schools of architecture and design have in tackling the housing crisis in Canada?
A: We need to make a major commitment to building knowledge and capacity that focuses on solutions to the housing crisis in our curriculum. Design thinking is premised on innovation; it is part of the competency, creativity and collaboration that we try to instill in future professionals. Architects today are absent from the design of neighbourhoods on the periphery of our cities. We need to bring back that creativity and the knowledge of architects, planners, and designers, and develop the prototypes that will provide solutions to the housing crisis.
SAPL is moving downtown so that we can be a part of downtown rebuilding and innovation. Our adaptive reuse of existing office space in Calgary’s downtown will provide opportunities to connect to local businesses and residents and offer immersion in city life that is critical for our students. Our school will be a living urban design lab, where we embrace social justice, community-inspired design work and collaborate with different communities of practice to demonstrate viable solutions for changing cities and changing societies.
Sara Stevens
Associate Professor & Chair – Urban Design at the School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture, University of British Columbia
Sara Stevens is an architectural historian and Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Her book Developing Expertisestudies real estate development in 20th-century American cities. She is a member of the collective Architects Against Housing Alienation, curators of the Canada Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.
Q: Major cities across Canada are seeing unprecedented housing issues. As an educator, what have you seen in research or studio projects that tackle these issues?
A: There are so many great examples of design studios in Canada that are looking at housing challenges, such as the ‘Not for Sale’ study abroad course on contemporary housing that recently won the ACSA’s 2024 Architectural Education Award. McGill has a long history of housing research with the Minimum Cost Housing Group, which was the subject of a recent exhibition curated by Ipek Türeli. The work of Shawn Bailey and Lancelot Coar at the University of Manitoba is bringing really innovative pedagogy to the question of housing for Indigenous communities to design schools.
Q: Any examples of collaboration between studio projects and practicing professionals in tackling the housing crisis?
A: At UBC, questions around missing middle housing brought forth a collaboration between Haeccity Studio Architects and UBC students that resulted in a publication of the students’ work, co-sponsored by SALA and the Urbanarium, an organization in Vancouver that is a forum for sharing ideas about city building, particularly around climate change and housing affordability. The Urbananium’s design competitions have focused on missing middle housing, mixed-use neighbourhoods, and the codes and regulations that are barriers to housing affordability. Their current competition, Decoding Timber Towers, is focused on prefab and mass timber housing.
Q: What policies do you feel cities in Canada should create or address to aid in the housing crisis and homelessness?
A: I think that Canada needs to take UNDRIP and the TRC Calls to Action seriously. We can’t separate the issue of housing for Indigenous people, and the history of colonization that it’s part of, from the housing challenges everyone else faces. The United Nations Housing as a Human Right work is a great resource on this, as their work also points to the problems of financialization and the effect this has had on renters, social housing, and un-housed folks.
The Land Back Courtyard was part of the Not For Sale exhibition at the Canada Pavilion in the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. Photo by Maris Mezulis
Q: What role do you think schools of architecture and design have in tackling the housing crisis in Canada?
A: Schools of architecture and design can play an important role by educating students about the role of architects in the housing crisis in Canada. We need the next generation of architects to understand that they have a part to play. It’s not an issue that can be solved through policy and the market alone: their expertise in design, which of course touches policy and works with the private sector, is inherently part of this issue.
To develop deeper conversations around this, I am working with collaborators in the collective Architects Against Housing Alienation to organize a super-studio across Canada for the next school yearcalled “End Housing Alienation Now!” that is inviting all schools of architecture to run studios on a shared set of themes and principles.We have commitments from almost all the schools already, and have hosted a number of conversations with people from the schools to develop how this will work, balancing what is shared vs. independent, the different schedules and levels of students, etc.
For these studios, one ambition is that the studios work with local activists, advocates, and professional practices to show students how important these kinds of collaborations can be, and how important embedded local knowledge is. We hope to share resources and create opportunities for students to connect across geographies to ensure that many, many people with lots of passion and expertise are focused on this topic.
As appeared in the June 2025 issue of Canadian Architect magazine
The post AIA Canada Journal: Canadian educators on housing affordability appeared first on Canadian Architect.
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