June Komisar PhD, AIA, MRAIC

June Komisar (she/her) is a registered architect in Massachusetts and an Associate Professor in the Department of Architectural Science at Toronto Metropolitan University.  She holds an M.Arch from Yale University and a doctorate in architecture, specializing in history and theory from the University of Michigan.  Recently, she has been introducing urban agriculture issues into the architectural curriculum with courses such as "Designing the Productive City: Architecture and Urban Agriculture." She teaches design, theory and history of architecture courses.  

With Mark Gorgolewski and Joe Nasr she is a co-curator for the exhibit Carrot City: Designing for Urban Agriculture (https://www.torontomu.ca/carrotcity). It has been shown in more than 20 cities and is the subject of the book Carrot City. She is an advisor for the TMU Urban Farm and on the board of Green Thumbs Growing Kids. She has served on the Toronto Food Policy Council, the board of ICOMOS Canada and on the Scientific Committees of several architecture conferences.  She is the PI of the REAL lab and a co-investigator with the TMU Architecture APP project.

Select Publications

Nasr, Komisar, de Zeeuw, A Panorama of Rooftop Agriculture Types in Rooftop Urban Agriculture, Francesco Orsini, Marielle Dubbeling, Henk de Zeeuw, Giorgio Gianquinto eds., Ch. 1b.

Mark Gorgolewski, Joe Nasr, June Komisar (2011). Carrot City: Creating Places for Urban Agriculture, Monacelli Press.

Joe Nasr and June Komisar. (2014). Displaying Urban Agriculture: from Garden City to Carrot City in Exhibitions and the Development of Modern Planning Culture,  ed. Robert Freestone and Marco Amati, Ashgate, pp 277 – 291.

Joe Nasr, June Komisar, Mark Gorgolewski (2014). Urban agriculture as ordinary urban practice: trends and lessons, in Second Nature Urban Agriculture – designing productive cities, ed. Katrin Bohn and Andre Viljoen, London, Routledge.

Updated November 2024