Teaching Portfolio: Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism, Carleton University

Since 2023, I have served as a Contract Instructor at Carleton University’s Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism, teaching undergraduate design studios focused on civic architecture, urban integration, and sustainable building systems. My approach is grounded in architectural thinking that emphasizes contextual response, spatial complexity, and critical engagement with contemporary issues. This portfolio documents the progression of work and teaching methods across three studio terms, illustrating my role in guiding students through layered design challenges in evolving urban settings.

Studio 3 – Winter 2025

ARCS 2106 | Second-Year Undergraduate Studio
Role: Contract Instructor
Title: Between Childhood and Contemplation: Scale, Space, and Spirit

This third-year undergraduate studio explored architecture’s capacity to engage emotional, cognitive, and sensorial development through two spatial typologies: a kindergarten and a non-denominational chapel. Both projects challenged students to consider the experiential dimension of space at different scales, while developing precise architectural proposals grounded in structure, material, and landscape.

Project 1: A Kindergarten for Carleton University
The first project asked students to design a kindergarten for four- and five-year-old children, situated at the southeast edge of Carleton University’s campus. The brief emphasized architecture at the scale of the child, requiring a rich interplay of sensory stimulation, spatial clarity, and protective enclosure. Students developed site-sensitive designs with careful attention to journey, threshold, materiality, and the fluid integration of indoor and outdoor learning environments. The pedagogical framework drew from Montessori and Waldorf principles, prompting reflection on how architecture can mediate between structure and freedom, order and play.

Project 2: A Non-Denominational Chapel
The second project shifted focus to contemplative space, asking students to design a small chapel for six to twelve people somewhere on the university campus. The brief called for a non-programmatic approach, free from religious iconography, centered instead on the spatial experience of quietude, light, and material presence. Students investigated how architectural elements could be composed to slow perception, elevate awareness, and foster reflection. Scale was explored at the bodily level, with primary focus on the sectional relationship between form, surface, and natural light.

Across both projects, students were evaluated on their capacity to translate abstract concepts into precise tectonic proposals, supported by rigorous drawing, modeling, and spatial iteration. The studio foregrounded architecture’s role in shaping not only function but also emotion, memory, and meaning.

Studio 3 – Fall 2024

ARCS 3105 | Third-Year Undergraduate Studio
Role: Contract Instructor

Course Focus
This intermediate undergraduate design studio focuses on adaptive re-use and systems-based design thinking. Through architectural interventions that address site specificity, ecology, community, and infrastructure, students are challenged to reimagine the future of existing buildings.

Site Context
The Fall 2024 studio used the Ottawa River and the National Capital Commission’s River House (formerly the Ottawa New Edinburgh Canoe Club, built in 1923) as a case study. This structure, and its complex shoreline site, offered an opportunity to explore reciprocal relationships between cultural heritage, natural systems, and contemporary public use.

Studio Objectives
Students were asked to investigate how an architecture of reuse can serve as a model of environmental, material, and cultural sustainability. Emphasis was placed on integrating architectural design with performance metrics and community responsiveness. Projects advanced from precedent studies and research to conceptual frameworks, technical explorations, and resolved design proposals.

Studio 3 – Winter 2023 / 2024

ARCS 2106 | Second-Year Undergraduate Studio
Role: Contract Instructor

This studio introduced second-year students to the expanded complexities of civic architecture. The semester was structured around two iterative projects centered on public and cultural institutions, with a focus on site-sensitive responses and programmatic integration.

The primary project asked students to reimagine a parking structure in Ottawa’s ByWard Market as a new cultural anchor—a Cinematheque and a relocated Ottawa School of Art. The project demanded students develop a cohesive architectural strategy that aligned with the City’s masterplan for the Market and responded to the dense social and spatial dynamics of the site.

Key pedagogical goals included the articulation of public ambition, critical site analysis, and incorporation of passive and active environmental systems. Students worked individually to develop design proposals that addressed both human and non-human users, accessibility, and community inclusion. Technical expectations included site planning, mass timber construction, section development, and systems integration.

This studio supported the development of ecological literacy (CACB B5) and environmental systems understanding (CACB C5), building on students’ previous experience while preparing them for more advanced studio work.