RESEARCH NATION WONG V incent Hui wakes up every morning ready to do fun stuff. For the architectural science professor, that means using technology to help students take their designs from concept to real-world application. To that end, he assigns projects that are often tied to competitions or other initiatives. For example, some assignments are designed to add to the Arch-App. The app, conceived and developed with the help of the Ryerson Library and students, provides information about Toronto’s most significant buildings. In all cases, the projects bolster students’ portfolios and in the process their confidence — Hui’s ultimate objective. Nowhere is this more evident than in another Hui brainchild, the [R]ed[U]x Lab, where archi- tectural design students bring their ideas to reality using digital fabrication and interactive tech- nologies. “Our program is known for ensuring students can design, detail and deliver,” says Hui. “The lab gives students support so they can realize their ideas and build credibility.” The result — student projects from the lab have been featured in Toronto’s annual art festival, Nuit Blanche, at the Royal Ontario Museum and been shown across Canada, in the U.S., Spain and the U.K. Born and raised in Toronto, Hui realized at a young age that archi- tecture impacts both how people behave and the welfare of society. “I wanted to play a role in shaping that.” He credits his teachers at St. Michael’s Choir School with his decision to become an academic. “They had such a positive impact on me. It motivated me to pay it forward by trying to have a similar impact on my students.” Hui started his education in architecture when the profession was just beginning its transition from drafting tables and hand- drawn floor plans to computers and software and was immediately captivated. “Today’s students are all about technology and they ap- preciate that we’ve embraced it.” Witness his use of augmented re- ality in the Arch-App, which allows users to hold their smartphones up to buildings and access information about the architecture. After the success of the archi- tecture app, Hui and a former stu- dent, now co-researcher, Matthew Compeau, created Augmented Reality in Development Design (ARIDD). “The software allows students to virtually see their designs built in full scale, on site. It bridges the physical and digital. You can see colours and material properties. They can build what they have in their head.” n Professor Vincent Hui in architectural science studio with first-year student projects. DESIGN LAB VINCENT HUI TEACHES STUDENTS TO BRIDGE THE PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL BY MARY TERESA BITTI WINTER 2016 • Ryerson University Magazine 27 Ryerson University Magazine, Winter 2016
Transcript
RESEARCH
NAT
ION
WO
NG
V incent Hui wakes up every morning ready to do fun stuff. For the architectural
science professor, that means using technology to help students take their designs from concept to real-world application.
To that end, he assigns projects that are often tied to competitions or other initiatives. For example, some assignments are designed to add to the Arch-App. The app, conceived and developed with the help of the Ryerson Library and students, provides information about Toronto’s most significant buildings. In all cases, the projects bolster students’ portfolios and in the process their confidence —
Hui’s ultimate objective. Nowhere is this more evident
than in another Hui brainchild, the [R]ed[U]x Lab, where archi-tectural design students bring their ideas to reality using digital fabrication and interactive tech-nologies. “Our program is known for ensuring students can design, detail and deliver,” says Hui. “The lab gives students support so they can realize their ideas and build credibility.” The result — student projects from the lab have been featured in Toronto’s annual art festival, Nuit Blanche, at the Royal Ontario Museum and been shown across Canada, in the U.S., Spain and the U.K.
Born and raised in Toronto, Hui realized at a young age that archi-tecture impacts both how people behave and the welfare of society. “I wanted to play a role in shaping that.” He credits his teachers at St. Michael’s Choir School with his decision to become an academic. “They had such a positive impact on me. It motivated me to pay it forward by trying to have a similar impact on my students.”
Hui started his education in architecture when the profession was just beginning its transition from drafting tables and hand-drawn floor plans to computers and software and was immediately captivated. “Today’s students are
all about technology and they ap-preciate that we’ve embraced it.”
Witness his use of augmented re-ality in the Arch-App, which allows users to hold their smartphones up to buildings and access information about the architecture.
After the success of the archi-tecture app, Hui and a former stu-dent, now co-researcher, Matthew Compeau, created Augmented Reality in Development Design (ARIDD). “The software allows students to virtually see their designs built in full scale, on site. It bridges the physical and digital. You can see colours and material properties. They can build what they have in their head.” n
Professor Vincent Hui in architectural science
studio with first-year student projects.
DESIGN LAB
VINCENT HUI TEACHES STUDENTS TO BRIDGE THE PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL BY MARY TERESA BITTI
W I N T E R 2 0 1 6 • Ryerson University Magazine 27
Ryerson University Magazine, Winter 2016
20 Ryerson University Magazine • W I N T E R 2015
RESEARCH
LAKE EFFECTHOW POLICY RESEARCHERS ARE HELPING RESTORE THE GREAT LAKES
W I N T E R 2 0 1 5 • Ryerson University Magazine 21
Politics and Public Administration Professor Carolyn Johns in Lake Ontario, bringing together Canadian and U.S. social scientists with the goal of making Great Lakes waters drinkable, fishable and swimmable.
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BY MARY TERESA BITTI, JOURNALISM ’89
H ow do you make sure that public policy designed to secure the health
of the Great Lakes − and by extension the well-being of the 35-plus million people who rely on the system for drinking water and their livelihood − is actually implemented?
That’s the question Ryerson Politics and Public Administra-tion Professor Carolyn Johns decided to tackle when she created the Great Lakes Policy Research Network (GLPRN), a collaborative partnership in-volving policy researchers and graduate students from eight universities in Canada and the United States.
“I wanted to bring together Canadian and U.S. social scientists interested in Great Lakes governance and policy issues to mobilize around the renegotiated Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and do research that would lead to better success.”
A little environmental policy history: In 1972, Canada and the U.S. signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in order to restore and protect the ecological health of the Great Lakes, starting with Lake Erie, which had been declared dead in the late 1960s due to widespread contamination from urban areas, agriculture, industries and sewage treat-ment plants. Because it is the
shallowest of the five lakes, Lake Erie issues clear warning signals about pollution prob-lems in the Great Lakes. The goals are simple: drinkable, fishable, swimmable waters.
Periods of concerted clean-up efforts restored Lake Erie and resulted in other successes but this was followed by a period of indifference in the mid- to late-1990s. The result: by the mid-2000s, Lake Erie started to experience the negative effects of algae blooms including contami-nation. Today it is in serious decline. Algae blooms are also leading to public warnings around Lake Ontario.
In 2009, Canada and the U.S. announced they would renegotiate the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, which had not been revised since 1987. At that time, the two federal governments promised to clean up 43 of the most polluted areas. By 2012, when the latest reitera-tion was finalized, only four had been cleaned up.
“The Great Lakes basin is a complex ecosystem that requires complex human intervention. We look at why we aren’t having more success. We can’t have ebbs and flows of government and public engagement,” says Johns, who serves as project director of the network that is using public opinion research and social network analysis to
understand the complexity of implementing the agreement. The project website is: www.greatlakespolicyresearch.org.
“We are doing a network survey of all the organizations and individuals with policy implementation mandates to understand how they work together or not. We already know Great Lakes efforts require a lot of government leadership and sustained attention and if it’s not there, not a lot happens. We want to know more about who is doing what and who isn’t engaged but should be.
“We also want to know more about our capacity to address issues such as groundwater management, offshore wind, invasive species, nutrient pol-lution management, shale gas and climate change.
“We hope that the parties that signed the agreement become aware of the gaps in capacity and shortfalls and where to target their efforts. We want to help create more accountability so that the goals and objectives can be achieved in a timely manner.” n
MARY TERESA BITTI IS A WRITER BASED IN OAKVILLE, ONT.
Ryerson University Magazine, Winter 2015
W I N T E R 2 0 1 5 • Ryerson University Magazine 23
One challenge? Payment structures. To access the kind of small-scale-farm produce that often typifies local eating, you need to cut smaller cheques more frequently to independent farmers who don’t operate on long pay cycles. Another is managing relationships with those small-scale farmers and providers themselves. Sourcing from smaller businesses can easily multiply your supplier list from a handful of people to 60. The results, however, are worth the work. Today, Ryerson buys from more than 60 Ontario farmers and food producers. The university’s newly renovated Hub Cafeteria offers fresh-from-scratch soups; its catering services boasts menus of artisanal Ontario cheese platters; and students can choose organic, vegan sweets.
“Institutions are built to support a specific kind of food service,” says
Maharaj, “but ideologically, universities are great for new programs to grow and incubate. It takes some visionary thinking to bring these ideas to light.”
Idea-wise, Ryerson has been thinking about food — how we produce, sell, regulate and ensure everyone has enough of it — for years. The school’s Centre for Studies in Food Security (CSFS) celebrated its 20th anniversary last year, while the Certificate in Food Security at The G. Raymond Chang School for Continuing Education ushered in its 10th.
To talk about food security, let alone study it, understanding and agreeing on what it means as a concept is vital — and wasn’t particularly easy in 1994, when the CSFS was born. “Most discussions of it made people think of different things. People would confuse it with food safety,” says
Mustafa Koç, a professor of sociology, co-founder and co-ordinator of the centre until 2004. The term food security came into popular use after a UN World Food Conference in the mid-70s, but was often wielded to discuss developing-nation food shortages. “We wanted to redefine it as a broader issue of access.”
The CSFS wanted to promote a view of food security that looked at a few aspects of the food we eat, locally and at large. If it was available, if it was accessible to everyone, if it was adequately nutritious and safe, and if it was culturally appropriate and didn’t compromise the dignity of the people obtaining it.
By the mid-2000s, the CSFS was producing research for international journals, and partnering with other organizations on massive, multi-year projects. Some notable ones include School
of Nutrition Professor Cecilia Rocha’s CIDA-funded partner study of how government policy addresses hunger in cities in northeast Brazil, and Koç’s partner project with University of British Columbia and the Vancouver School Board on developing school curriculums around healthy eating and understanding food systems.
Closer to home, Joe Nasr, a course instructor for The Chang School’s Certificate in Food Security and CSFS associate scholar, has been studying city food production for some time, with a particular focus on urban agriculture. In 2010, he co-authored a report for the Metcalf Foundation that dispelled some common misbeliefs about the potential to grow food in, and feed, urban neighbourhoods.
For example, space isn’t Toronto’s biggest barrier in
22 Ryerson University Magazine • W I N T E R 2015
CHEF JOSHNA MAHARAJ TAKES THE CAMPUS ON A HEALTHY-FOOD QUEST AS HER
REVAMPED RYERSON EATS COOKS UP FRESH, WHOLESOME, LOCAL MEALS
BY CHANTAL BRAGANZA, JOURNALISM ’09
FROM FARM TO TABLE IN
THE HEART OF THE CITY
EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO, JOSHNA MAHARAJ CAME TO RYERSON UNIVERSITY WITH AN EXCITING,
if daunting, imperative: change the way a downtown Toronto institution fed its community. She was
charged with developing a strategy that would reinvent the food being served at Ryerson’s residences,
Hub Cafeteria and in catering, to menus that are wholesome, affordable, fresh-made and locally sourced
wherever possible. Now executive chef and assistant director of Food Services, Maharaj wasn’t entirely
new to this kind of work. Having consulted with Toronto-area hospitals to redesign patient menus to
focus on fresh, local produce, she understood plenty of the challenges that came with shifting large,
industrial food systems to think local.
Ryerson University Magazine, Winter 2015
JESS
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GE
ART
S ’0
3DANA YATES IS A
TORONTO-BASED
WRITER.
YOUNG ARCHITECT GETS A KICK OUT OF CREATING PAN AM PLAYSPACE
BY DANA YATES
DESIGNING A LEGACY
Every dish at Signs restaurant comes with a side of good
karma and a sprinkle of novelty.That’s because most of
the Toronto establishment’s staff are deaf, so having a meal there helps individuals facing extra barriers to employment. What’s more, patrons enjoy a unique dining experience — learning basic sign language so they can interact with waiters.
The innovator behind this first-of-its-kind business is 28-year-old Anjan Manikumar, Ted Rogers School of Management (MBA) ’13. Seven years ago, while managing a
casual restaurant in Markham, Ont., he observed that a deaf customer could only order food by pointing at menu items. To serve him better, Manikumar learned basic greetings in American Sign Language (ASL). On his next visit to the restaurant, the gentleman was so delighted that he returned the next day with friends.
The experience sparked what Manikumar originally saw as just a fun idea. But he says his MBA courses in entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility, and the encouragement of his professors, made him realize
he wanted to start a business that supported the local community.
After graduating, Manikumar used the business case skills he gained at Ryerson to critically evaluate the feasibility of his concept. He turned to local deaf services organizations for help with hiring employees, and at-tracted about 300 applicants — an overwhelming but not sur-prising response, given the 80 per cent un/underemployment rate among deaf Canadians.
Signs opened last August as a 150-seat restaurant serving con-temporary Canadian and inter-national fare, and Manikumar
says he’s already breaking even. Patrons learn from servers signs such as “yes,” “no” and “thank you,” and order from a menu featuring the signs for each item. They can also use an ASL “cheat sheet” explaining how to request ingredient modifica-tions or indicate food allergies.
“We are providing opportun-ities for deaf people to succeed,” Manikumar says, “and offering an educational experience for our guests that shows what deaf people are capable of. It’s a win-win situation.” n
SHARON ASCHAIEK IS A
TORONTO-BASED WRITER.
26 Ryerson University Magazine • S U M M E R 2 0 1 5
DA
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ALA
BR
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ALUMNI PROFILES
UNIQUE RESTAURANT OFFERS EMPLOYMENT TO THE DEAF AND A RICH EXPERIENCE FOR DINERS
SIGN AND DINE
BY SHARON ASCHAIEK
Ana Stefanovic, Architectural Science ’07, is a fan of sports facilities. As a child in
Belgrade, Serbia, she lived near the stadium of the local football club, and when the team wasn’t playing, she was a regular in the building, competing in track and field events.
“It was my place,” she says. “I knew even then that I wanted to become an architect and design stadiums.”
Today her gargantuan dream has come true. Her portfolio includes work on Hamilton’s brand-new Tim Hortons Field, hosting Pan Am soccer and also home of the Hamilton Tiger Cats; the New York Islanders' hockey arena; and Madison Square Garden, home of the New York Rangers and New York Knicks.
Since 2014, Stefanovic has been co-ordin-ator, games overlay, with the Toronto 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Games Organizing Commit-tee. In that role, she has worked with sports and medical administrators, and officials overseeing the Games' ceremonies, to design venues for CIBC Pan Am Park, “action central” for the 24-day event that will be held this summer.
Located on the shores of Lake Ontario, and encompassing Exhibition Place and Ontario Place West Channel, the park will host 16 sport competitions, making it the largest sport cluster of the Games. For example, existing facilities such as BMO Field and Ricoh Coliseum will host rugby 7s and gymnastics, while more than 3,000 metric tonnes of sand will help turn an everyday parking lot in Exhibition Place into the Chevrolet Beach Volleyball Centre.
More than 10,000 athletes and officials from the Americas and Caribbean will participate in the Games. Another 250,000 visitors will attend the event, which will be hosted by venues across the Greater Golden Horseshoe region.
“I like the idea of leaving a legacy,” Stefanovic says of her work with the Games. “How many people will go [to a sports facility you designed] and have the best time of their lives? I love that.”
S U M M E R 2 0 1 5 • Ryerson University Magazine 27
Ryerson University Magazine, Summer 2015
RESEARCHERS AT THE CENTRE FOR URBAN
ENERGY ARE FINDING WAYS TO KEEP YOUR
LIGHTS (AND AIR CONDITIONING) ON
In the wake of massive power outages related to weather, we’re reminded that power is critical to our society. If we look to the future, the demands on Ontario’s aging electricity system will only intensify as it faces the dual challenges of urban densification and climate change.
How can the province’s electricity grid supply power more reliably and efficiently to urban centres like the GTA – home to 6.5 million people today and a projected 9.4 million by 2041 – while also cutting pollution?
The traditional electricity network must adapt quickly to these changes and get smarter, says Bala Venkatesh, academic director of the Centre for Urban Energy (CUE) at Ryerson. That’s one of the main goals of more than 60 CUE researchers – to help overcome these challenges more effectively and economically. “The energy delivery paradigm is changing and it’s not just the energy companies that have all the solutions. We could be a big piece of it by researching and trying to
find solutions in collaboration with entrepreneurs and utility partners,” says Venkatesh, a professor of electrical and computer engineering.
Venkatesh sees CUE’s new Schneider Electric Smart Grid Lab as a catalyst for the development, testing and implementation of innovative ideas and products to transform the delivery of electricity. That means smart power solutions to plug renew-able but intermittent energy sources, like sun and wind, into the grid safely and reliably. Developing and deploying new and affordable energy storage technologies to make the grid more resilient and improve power quality (a measure of how close the actual power supply system is to an ideal power supply system). Building and integrating many more micro-grids into the system, like those at New York University and Co-op City in the Bronx, which kept the lights and heat on even as the large-scale grid went down around them and 8.5 million customers from Delaware to Massachusetts lost power during
Hurricane Sandy in 2012. A more resilient grid could make a difference in maintaining and restoring power in severe weather such as the Toronto ice storm of December 2013, or the massive northeastern North America blackout in 2003.
One key advantage of the Smart Grid Lab is that it offers energy researchers, entrepreneurs, utilities and students the opportunity to safely explore, refine and test innovative ideas and technologies at a fraction of the cost of conducting trials on the existing grid. Historically, utilities have been reluctant to innovate because of the financial and safety risks. This leading-edge
NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data provided courtesy of Chris Elvidge (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center). Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, NOAA, and the Department of Defense. Caption by Mike Carlowicz.
22 Ryerson University Magazine • S U M M E R 2015 S U M M E R 2 0 1 5 • Ryerson University Magazine 23
BY MARK WITTEN
A SMART GRID IS
A STATE-OF-THE-ART
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM
THAT USES DIGITAL
INFORMATION TO
IMPROVE OPERATIONAL
PERFORMANCE OF
THE POWER GRID.
PLAYERSPOWER
Ryerson University Magazine, Summer 2015
May/June 2015
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IN THIS ISSUE:
interzum and LIGNA Impressions
AWFS Fair Show Preview
PLUS! The latest news from around the industry
18 September/October 2015
WOODCHIPS The latest news from around the woodworking industry
Biesse Group launches ‘Give’ campaign
“
”
PUSHING MY BUSINESS TO BE BIGGER AND BETTER EVERY DAY?AWFS®FAIR GETS IT.
The innovation at AWFS®Fair doesn’t stop with the newest trends,
products, suppliers, equipment and knowledge—the show keeps
innovating too. Packed with action and insights that take my business
to the next level, AWFS®Fair is as forward-thinking as I am.
WHAT’S NEW IN 2015:More new technology and products. AWFS®Fair is the guaranteed place to see exciting innovations firsthand and in full action. This year will feature more new exhibitors and an expanded show floor.
The AWFS®Fair STAGE. A new educational and entertaining destina-tion located on the show floor. Handheld power tool demos, celebrities, the Fresh Wood Award Ceremony—see it all here!
AWFS®Fair Plastics Program. Compare all the latest technologies and suppliers for plastics fabrication, with cutting, polishing and edge finishing machinery and supplies right on the show floor.
See everything NEW in full action—REGISTER TODAY at www.awfsfair.org
Spotlight on Software. A series of mini-presentations from various software exhibitors presented on the AWFS®Fair STAGE—explore a broad range of manufacturing software applications and have your questions answered by the experts.
John Bassett III, subject of The New York Times bestseller “Factory Man.” This industry veteran shares his personal story of waging—and winning!—a battle against offshoring that helped save American jobs, a town and a legacy. M ore than 400 people
attended Biesse Group North
America’s launch event for the Make-A-Wish Night to launch the company’s ‘Give’ campaign at last month’s AWFS Fair in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Federico Broccoli, president/CEO of Biesse America and Canada, kicked off the new campaign by presenting the Make-A-Wish foundation with a check for $6,000 to sponsor a child’s wish, pointing out that while companies fight for market share, these children are the real heroes fighting for their market share of life.
In addition to the first sponsorship, Biesse donated $100 to Make-A-Wish for each machine sold at the show and thanked everyone for helping them bring hope, joy and strength to children with life-threatening medical conditions.
AWFS 2015 was the most successful show to date for Biesse America with more than 1,000 attendees from 750 companies visiting their booth for demonstrations. n
