Contact
AA510, 5th Floor
Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism,
Carleton University
Carleton University
Info
The Carleton Urban Research Lab (c-url) at the Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism supports design-based thinking and collaborative projects centred on water, cities, and equity.
Architecture, from the scale of the room to the city, is based on understanding material, social, and environmental conditions and imagining design in terms that are simultaneously political, cultural, and artistic. New challenges around globalization, urbanization, climate change, infrastructural failures, mass migration, ecosystems degradation, and energy use increase the need for integrated thinking, which equally values ethical, embodied knowledge alongside quantifiable data.
The Carleton Urban Research Lab was created by Professors Ozayr Saloojee and Catherine Bonier in January of 2017. C-url promotes design thinking — seeking ways to expand research, teaching, and engagement around the Lab’s three central themes — water, cities, and equity. Saloojee and Bonier build upon their own expertise in the areas of architecture and urbanism to establish ongoing transdisciplinary collaborations with university, government, and private entities within Canada as well as internationally.
C-url hosted its inaugural symposium and workshop, Fluid Infrastructures, on March 3-4, 2017. With assistance from partners in the National Capital Commission and the help of visiting designers and researchers, students investigated Ottawa’s past and present relationship to its river through tours, lectures, discussions, and design workshops. In 2018, the second c-url symposium, Working Waterfronts // Freshwater Fictions, brought together international students and experts to envision urban waterfront redevelopment around the issues of infrastructure, environment, and equity. The Carleton Urban Research Lab continues to engage in work based on ethically grounded knowledge and collaborative research and design projects.
Research Fellows
Baljot Jagdev | Research Fellow
2023 – Present
Baljot Jagdev is an undergraduate 3rd-year Bachelor of Architectural Studies student in the Urbanism concentration. She has an innate passion for understanding the ways in which cities are planned, designed, and function. She is particularly interested in the intersection of urbanism and holistic design, as well as the role of urban design in shaping community identity and fostering social cohesion. Additionally, she provides research and administrative support.
Marly Margharious | Research Fellow
2022 – 2023
Marly Magharious is an undergraduate 4th-year Bachelor of Architectural Studies student in the Urbanism concentration. As a LEED GA, she has a passion for understanding sustainable design networks and currently provides research support to Associate Professor Bonier on Amphibious Architectures.
Andrea McIntosh | Research Fellow
2021 – 2022
Andrea McIntosh is a proud member of Fisher River Cree Nation and currently an Intern Architect at Farrow Partners located in Toronto, ON. She is interested in the coexistence and mutual flourishing of architectural, neuroscientific and indigenous perspectives of health and well-being. Andrea provided research support for the Gendered Design in Steam (GDS) Project, and teaching support for Assoc. Prof. Bonier’s Cities course.
.
Fiki Falola | Research Fellow
2019 – 2021
Fiki Falola completed an Honours Bachelor of Arts at the University of Toronto in Architecture Studies (history and theory concentration) alongside Philosophy. She is currently in the Azrieli School’s M.Arch. program and provides research support.
Felix Mayer | Research Fellow
2019 – 2020
Felix Mayer completed his B.EDS degree with a major in the architectural cooperative program in 2017 at Dalhousie University. He is currently in the M.ARCH I program and provides research and administrative support.
Madelaine Snelgrove | Research Fellow
2019 – 2020
Madelaine Snelgrove is an undergraduate 4th year student in the Urbanism concentration, with previous education at Selkirk College in British Columbia. She provides research and administrative support.
Charles-Étienne Déry | Research Fellow
2018 – 2019
Charles-Étienne Déry is an undergraduate 4th year student in the urbanism concentration. He has assisted with the Summer Cities event and continues research & project support.
Viktor Ivanovic | Research Fellow
2018 – 2019
Viktor Ivanovic is an undergraduate 4th year student in the urbanism concentration. He has assisted with Summer Cities Symposium 2018 and provides support through the year.
R. Ian Dayagbil | Research Coordinator & Technology Tutor
2018 – 2021
Romano Ian Dayagbil finished his B.AS in 2018 with a concentration in Urbanism. He has helped coordinate the 2018 Summer Cities symposium and provides educational and research support.
Andrea Tamayo Bernal | Research Fellow
2017 – 2018
Andrea Tamayo Bernal is an undergraduate 4th year student in the urbanism concentration. She has assisted with the Shifting Frames and the Fluid Infrastructures event.
Co-Directors
Catherine Bonier | Associate Professor
Catherine Bonier teaches courses in architectural and urban design, research, history, and theory. Her research spans from historical analysis to futuristic visions, and centers on the shaping of the built environment around water, technology, and ideas of health and balance. Bonier earned both her professional MArch and her PhD in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in History from Harvard College. Her dissertation addressed historical ideas of equilibrium and democracy and their relationship to urban water, infrastructure, and environment.
Professor Bonier’s current work centers on design’s role in fostering the intertwined desires for resistance, resilience, and delight, both in creative visualizations and in contemporary urban projects. She is co-director and co-founder of the Carleton Urban Research Lab (c-url) with Professor Ozayr Saloojee. C-URL is engaged in collaborative interdisciplinary research, teaching, and design centered on 3 themes — water, cities, and equity.
Ozayr Saloojee | Associate Professor
Professor Saloojee previously taught at the University of Minnesota’s College of Design, where he was Associate Professor of Architecture with affiliate faculty status in Landscape Architecture and Religious Studies. Before moving to Minnesota in 2005, he studied, taught and practiced architecture here in Ottawa, receiving his B.Arch and Post-professional M.Arch (Theory and Culture) from Carleton University. He completed his PhD at the Bartlett School of Architecture under the supervision of Dr. J. K. Birksted and Dr. I. Borden.
Professor Saloojee teaches courses in architectural design, urbanism and history that focus around themes of infrastructure, post-coloniality, and alternative urban futures. His research and academic interests include work on politically contested terrains, resiliency and adaptive infrastructures and landscapes through the intersection of architecture, landscape and cultural geographies. He continues to work in partnership with colleagues at the University of Minnesota and remains involved in a number of interdisciplinary, multi-partner collaborations, including the Great Lakes Design Lab (directed by Professor Karen Lutsky). Here in Ottawa, he partners with Professor Catherine Bonier on our newly established Carleton Urban Research Lab (C-URL) at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism.
Research Partners
