Engineering 1P01
Every fall semester, Engineering 1P01 students integrate their research into final speculative projects to re-engineer sites along the Welland Canal in St. Catharines, Ontario.
In this course, each student took an aspect of the canal to reimagine. Ultimately, the elements within the identified sites enhanced usability, functionality, and social interaction and helped ships navigate the narrow channel waters.
The course took a holistic approach, incorporating ideas outside the field of engineering that combined contemporary art, design, machine learning, sense and cognition, social science, and cultural studies.
In addition, course projects investigated real-world problems within the Niagara region (and beyond).
Each project integrated practical and speculative approaches to various branches of knowledge. The class studied non-anthropocentric concerns and discussed how technologies integrate environments and living systems through the lens of art, architecture, First Nations urban planning, and engineering. In addition, students looked at 21st-century technologies and materials to understand how to integrate them into their designs.
The course curriculum introduced the students to various artists, thinkers and concepts associated with art/techno/science collaborations.
Some subjects covered were Art and Technology, Environmental Art, and projects emphasizing bio and civil engineering. Students introduced a final 30-page collaborative essay that articulated their research. The final speculative design projects culminated in this virtual exhibition to showcase the work done in the group represented by this website.
Highlighted by their areas of interest, each student's contribution was unique,.
In this project, the students were to:
Identify a site
Design a project for that site
Consider environmental sustainability
Think about the complexities they would encounter from the redesign
Have an understanding of the ramifications for the future (Examples: social interactions, new spaces for plants and animals, enhancing transportation)
Discuss new technologies and materials that lessened project costs
Discover flexible or even impermanent structures and spaces
The images below were taken during a field trip to the Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre, where we examined the exhibits and researched the sites and canal activities.
