The design studio is at the core of Daniels Faculty education. The studios are a 24-7 space where students engage in project-based learning, synthesizing principles and techniques introduced elsewhere in the curriculum. The studio is where students, working with faculty and visiting experts, explore ideas, evaluate alternatives, and generate drawings, models, and other representations in an iterative process of trial and error prototyping. It is also where students model professional behavior and prepare for their careers, by learning to present and defend their ideas, and work in interdisciplinary teams.

One Spadina offers an opportunity to create more versatile twenty-first century studios in which digital technologies and new modes of collaboration are facilitated. One Spadina will provide our students with flexible modern workspaces that integrate both formal spaces of fabrication and informal presentation spaces, where design critiques can take place. The new studios will transform the design studio experience and help us recruit the most promising students and instructors.

One Spadina will also allow us to create an expanded and advanced Digital Fabrication Laboratory and high bay construction area, both of which are needed for the production and manufacturing of advanced prototypes. The lab will feature a variety of computationally-controlled technologies, including large 3-axis routers, a fused deposition modeling rapid-prototyping systems, a ZCorp color 3D printer, several laser cutters, a large format vacuum former, and a suite of workstations.