Created by Carleton University architecture student Lara Sedele, this digital collage was one of over 400 pieces submitted to the school?s annual Director?s Project drawing competition. The competition invited students to respond to the theme ?The Fierce Urgency of Now.?
Since last spring, Canadian schools of architecture have been both destabilized and galvanized by sustained student activism. Professors and program administrators have been responding in a variety of ways to the call to more urgently and drastically rethink both our relation to traditional architectural education and our paths forward.
As chair of the Canadian Council of University Schools of Architecture (CCUSA), Canadian At-Large Director on the board of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, and a member of the Racial Equity and Environmental Justice Task Force within the School of Architecture of the University of Waterloo?and I should also say from the privileged position of a white tenured faculty member?I have found myself participating in many conversations motivated by this rethinking. CCUSA is a council of the directors of accredited professional architecture programs in Canada. Prompted by the pandemic and the calls to actions that occurred in most schools over the past year, the group has been meeting frequently to consider ways to share resources and collectively take action. What needs to be done to implement meaningful changes in our education, discipline and profession&...