BEAT is continuing to work in collaboration with local architects to provide a platform for promoting equality within the profession, through networking and leadership opportunities.
BEAT Talks are a series of discussions held at the offices of Architects across the city. Hosts will share their learned experience.
We are honoured to have Ja Architecture Studio host the BEAT Talk session on Wednesday, May 19th, 2021.
About Ja Architecture Studio:
Ja Architecture Studio is a Toronto-based practice that combines the rootedness of a local architecture firm with the broad interests of an international design studio. From small residential projects that confront domestic sentiments and detail-level building constraints to ambitious international competitions that must draw upon the collective repertoire of the discipline, the trajectory of the practice is based on a method of simultaneously working at the opposing ends of the professional spectrum. Taken as a whole, the studio’s work invests in larger questions of the discipline, namely how iconographic, geometric, formal, and tectonic pursuits relate to broader contexts such as politics, construction, landscape, and urbanism.
Founded by a registered architect and a landscape designer, and supported by a passionate team of skilled architects, designers, and students, the studio has achieved a repertoire of built works, research projects, and award-winning competition entries. The latter includes fourth prize in the International Competition for the Bauhaus Museum in Dessau (2015); honorable mentions for their entries to both the Guggenheim Helsinki Competition (2015) and the International Competition for the Kaunas Concert Center (2017); and two Canadian Architects Awards (2015 & 2018). Ja’s work has been published widely and exhibited both nationally and internationally.
The two founding principles, Nima Javidi and Behnaz Assadi, continually strive to combine their professional work with their academic interests. As a Lecturer at the University of Toronto’s Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, Behnaz’s focus on Landscape Urbanism has informed her teaching while Nima’s recent investigation into typological collage has become a primary interest in coordinating design studios at The Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture in New York City.
With conversations that range from the role of public art or international exhibitions with curators, to the wood joinery of a three legged chair with a local furniture maker, or the virtues of renaturalization urban plots with neighbours, the studio aims to investigate the core of architecture through operating at numerous points around its periphery, connecting the themes and interests within the studio with those of the world at large. This approach was not chosen for its assurance of success but as a means for investigating the merit and relevance of Ja’s ideas across as wide a variety of scales and contexts as possible.
“A line through scales
As we are all learning more about the problems and opportunities of virtual architecture conversations over Zoom, JA Architecture studio will try to host BEAT Toronto in the space somewhere between their office and the models, sometimes in the office and sometimes in their models. Join us!”
BEAT Talks qualifies for OAA Learning Hours.
Tickets are now available here: