UP

M-1

This project was completed in a two-week intensive Design-Build course at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at University of Toronto. The idea was to design and build a mobile structure for this important community organization that could function as an armature to take up (public) space, while acting as a storage unit in their tiny office. A fast-paced design and building exercise to produce a flexible structure for the community, with the community.

For: Parkdale Neighborhood Land Trust

Faciliators: Reza Nik, Andrew Winchur, and Angela Cho

Student Team: Aizah Bakhtiyar, Eunice Cheuny, Felipe Coral, Alejandra Cortez Paz, Dennis Fichman, Karen Gebara, Jane Guberman, Hannah Hui, Mehreen Khan, Bella Osterman, Sam Shahsavani, Bhavika Sharma, Sibora Sokolaj, and Zainab Wakil.

Designed and built for an artistic intervention by Dana Prieto for the Beyond Extraction Counter-Conference and the People Before Profit rally held in response to PDAC (Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada) in 2020. As described by Prieto, ”Food Beyond Extraction is a food cart that mobilizes foods, written materials and conversations related to the impacts of and resistances to Canadian mining extraction in Global South territories. Our cuisine highlights foods and ingredients from regions whose land, food, and cultural rights are being threatened by Canadian mining projects in the three countries sponsoring PDAC this year.”

For: Dana Prieto & Food Beyond Extraction Collective

Collaborators: Aemilius Milo Ramirez, Meech Boakye, People Beyond Profit

Team: Reza Nik, Sam Shahsavani, and Ghazal Elmizadeh

M-2

M-3

2021

A project for a community kitchen in need of a set of mobile garden beds to support their 100+ free lunches per day that they provide to Toronto’s unhoused population. This project was about resourcefulness, and a collaborative design and building process with the client’s needs in mind.

For: Unity Kitchen TO Collaborators: Lily Jeon, Julia Nakanishi, Siobhán Allman, Mona Dai, and TAL-TO (The-ArchitectureLobby-Toronto)

A project for Homes First - a provider of affordable and stable housing who operate several transitional housing complexes. They needed a modular platform for various programming needs indoors and outdoors. The process was highly collaborative and involved designing, building, and painting with the community.

For: Homes First, North York Arts

Collaborators: Makeshift Collective (Aileen Ling, Derek Simmers, Nam Hoang, Dylan Johnston, Nassim Sani), Lily Jeong, Heather Breeze, and Muse Arts

M-4

M-5

The Mobilizer 5.0 is a prop to facilitate conversations within a community—in this context, at the Malton Greenway in Mississauga—a suburb west of Toronto. As a multi-faceted performance piece, it occupied the site while engaging with the local community in discussing climate change and the importance of neighbourhood green spaces.

For: City of Mississauga, Temporary Public Art Team: Reza Nik and Connor Stevens

Mentees: Jada Wallace and Zaynab

This mobile & modular furniture series was designed for the antichamber of the locally loved queer theatre Buddies in Bad Times. Our scope included the conceptualizing, design and coordination of a variety of loose furniture pieces that could function for a variety of programmatic needs while being small enough to be stored away within the tiny room. The resulting design included two floor to ceiling half concealed storage niches that the furniture would tuck into when not in use. We also designed a modular two-piece bar on hydraulic wheels that could be moved around and set up for the different types of events.

For: Buddies in Bad Times Theatre

Team: Connor Stevens, Reza Nik, Yoon Chai

Builder: GoodSh.t Studio

SHEEEP % REZA NIK

We’re in need of small-scale thinkers & tinkerers, with visions of a better tomorrow. Resisting the urge to go big is powerful, It is counter to the norm, No more monumental utopias, dystopias or cities of tomorrow built from scratch, even if they are assembled by the best minds.

The Architect is not the savior. Architecture won’t save us.

We’ve got lots around us to build from, And lots of voices to learn from & build with, voices silenced for too long, working hard on the ground, with grass roots, growing movements.

Scaling down enables a sense of agency.

Small is a seed, offer nourishment, and these small gestures can grow and take up space.

Wherever needed. go small.