Pina Petricone Hosts Design Research Internship for Daniels Faculty Students at GPA

June 3, 2021

Principal Pina Petricone has hosted the first ever session of ARC399 – Design Research Internship at GPA. The class of 12 students were all in the process of completing their undergraduate degrees at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape & Design at the University of Toronto. The two-week intensive course was designed with the intention of offering students an opportunity to build skills in design research within professional projects. The students were able to develop their visual communication skills by executing both individual and collective work to the Atlas of Light Operations, which is a compendium of selected custom light fixtures, both built and rendered, from a range of GPA projects.

The coursework began with an examination of various precedents for the presentation of design research and models for graphic representation as well as an overview of the GPA portfolio. Students began analyzing drawings, construction photos, renderings, and plans for each project containing a custom fixture. Working together to explore different methodologies of displaying research, the students combined work led to the overall design which was then populated by the drawings of each student, taking creative liberties to understand the context, quality, and usage of their assigned light fixture. The course was a great success with the intended goal of working collaboratively and effectively within the GPA body of work, sharing, articulating, and critiquing the design process, as well as completing a critical research project. See full story here.