Urban Analytique Exercise (ASC 406) to be featured in the 2025 Year End Show

Undergraduate coursework from ASC 406: Urban Analytique Exercise taught by assistant professor Dustin Valen will be featured in the 2025 Year End Show, showcasing a series of hand-drawn analytique compositions. This assignment challenged students to engage drawing as a method of historical analysis, exploring residential adjacencies near Allan Gardens and Stanley Park—sites of their studio projects.

Students selected two adjacent residential buildings representing different periods of Toronto’s urban development, from Victorian-era homes to postwar mid-rises and contemporary high-rises. Through orthographic projection and multi-scale compositions, they created intricate, pencil-drawn analytique drawings, a technique rooted in the traditions of the École des Beaux-Arts.

Accompanying the collection is a time-lapse video by Andrea Trapane, offering an immersive look at the analytical drawing process. Focusing on the properties at 338 and 44 Jarvis Street, Trapane’s video captures how architectural styles, proportions, and materiality shape the evolving urban landscape. “Despite being physically connected, these buildings tell entirely different stories,” she reflects. “Cities are layered palimpsests, where new and old architecture exist in constant conversation—and that to me, is one of the beauties of architecture.”

Don’t miss this compelling study of Toronto’s architectural fabric at the Year End Show (external link) !