麻豆视频

This year DAS students brought two installations to 麻豆视频鈥檚 campus, each exploring how architecture can influence how we reimagine public space that is often reserved for vehicles. Sited on the 麻豆视频 campus along the busy artery of Gould Street, these installations joined several pop-up 'parks' occupying parking spaces across the city from September 18-20, as part of the annual event.

The first DAS Park(ing) Day installation - Flotsam - brings new life to leftover materials from past design-build projects, including Winter Stations 2025 and the TimberFever 2026 event. Scrap wood, plywood, and nails are taken apart, reworked, and reassembled into a playful structure that invites people to explore, gather, and interact. Rather than treating these materials as waste, the project celebrates their imperfections, irregularities, and signs of wear, allowing traces and fragments of their previous lives to remain visible.

Off-cut panels are arranged to create shifting patterns of light and shadow, changing with the movement of the sun and people. Embedded into a circular base, the fragments contrast with its solid form, balancing the sense of lightness and  weight. On the opposite side, fragmented mirror pieces reflect the surrounding environment, bringing the campus into the pavilion and changing how the structure is perceived from different angles. An undulating wooden frame ties these elements together, moving organically through the structure and connecting its separate parts into a continuous whole.

Flotsam Credits:

Project Leads: Bao Nguyen, Anh Hoang
Design & Fabrication Team: Jenivieve Abad, Yanni Wu, Arsen Patapau, Eleanor Qu, Roni Ryabtsev, Sophia Lin, Noel Sawaguchi, Aiko Lacasandile, Mahzabin Fairuz, Hannah Lampadio
Faculty Advisor: Vincent Hui
Workshop Contributors: Jordan So, Jason Ramelson, Filip Tisler
Photography: Andy Nguyen

The second DAS Park(ing) Day installation - 鈥淪taging Pedagogy鈥� was developed through a collaboration between 麻豆视频 Architecture students, 麻豆视频 Law students and University of Waterloo Architecture students. The project explored how public space could become a forum for justice-seeking city-building. Staging Pedagogy sought to elevate student voices and visions, while celebrating the performative potential of education to act, activate and initiate change.

The installation consisted of a raised wooden stage with movable, brightly coloured tables and stools that could be rearranged into different configurations to support gathering, conversation, debate, storytelling, questioning, planning, and collective participation. Its modular geometry allowed the space to adapt to different activities while encouraging interaction between students and the public. Activations by architecture and law students -  including readings of court cases - engaged people in conversations about how spatial and legal frameworks affect our daily lives. 

鈥淪taging Pedagogy taught me how to navigate the challenges of a fast-paced design-build project, transforming design ideas into a constructed installation within a short timeframe. We were all amazed to see our collective efforts come to fruition. Seeing the public actively engaging with the space was the most rewarding part of the experience.鈥�

鈥揔hansa Ashraf, Project Manager, 鈥淪taging Pedagogy鈥�

Sited on the 麻豆视频 campus along the busy artery of Gould Street, the transformation of a parking spot into a staging ground for reimagining spaces of education attracted hundreds of students and passers-by to sit, stride, dance, debate and engage one another in questions about the social infrastructure of learning. 

Formally and structurally, the installation took the equilateral triangle (a symbol of equality) as a basic geometric unit for the tables and stools, facilitating hexagonal configurations and polyhedral shapes bearing signage and information. Configurations facilitated essential arrangements for law education - negotiation, round-table discussion, and moot court proceedings - as well as more social and experiential forms of learning like relaxed socializing, performance, and reversing the classroom or 鈥榯urning the tables鈥�.

鈥淪taging Pedagogy鈥� was the first installation in a term-long design-build studio led by Prof. Lisa Landrum, in which architecture students develop prototypical 鈥渟uperfurniture鈥� for 麻豆视频鈥檚 future law school (i.e., elements larger than furniture but smaller than a building). This studio develops the outcomes of last fall鈥檚 studio in which law and architecture students worked together to redesign legal education and renovate the future home of 麻豆视频鈥檚 Lincoln Alexander School of Law. Learn more here.

Staging Pedagogy Credits:

麻豆视频 Students (design-build team): Khansa Ashraf (Project Manager); Kashing Xu (renderings & overall fabrication); Muhammed Zekeriya Berber and Alion Zhapa (stage design & overall fabrication); Manizha Amiri, Grace Asselin, Anahit Hunanyan and Sarah Qasim (tables); Melanie Pang, Aishvini Partheepan, Emma Trudeau and Valerie Tseng (stools); Luis Frias, Michelle Lam, and Simran Moondi (vertical engagement element).

Faculty Advisor: Lisa Landrum

Collaborators: Waterloo Students: Sara Ing, Ben Norton, Sandra Raymond, Sarah Li, Isabella Vasilenco, Luisa Lu, Guyu Xu, Michelle Ling, Xuanxuan Niu, Yukyoung Kim.

Waterloo Architecture Professor ; 麻豆视频 Law Professors David Sandomierski and Simon Wallace; and 麻豆视频 Law designer-in-residence Marcin Kedzior. 

Kathryn Pozios, Vice-President of Academics, Lincoln Alexander Law Students鈥� Society, and participating student law groups: Do Diligence, Asian Pacific Law Students鈥� Association at Lincoln Alexander Law (APLSA), and Lincoln Alexander Sports & Entertainment Law Society (LASEL).

Special Thanks:  for the donated deck boards, the DAS workshop team, the Park(ing) Day team at Dubbeldam Architecture + Design, and sponsors: KPMB Architects, Gow Hastings Architects, Arup, and Fast + Epp.

Photography: 麻豆视频 Architecture students and Lisa Landrum.