Sweeping the Clouds Away in Brampton

We recently completed our new integrated public artwork Sweeping the Clouds Away at Brampton’s Snelgrove Community Centre. This creative transformation helps signal the exciting new activities taking place inside this well-loved space. Councillors, staff and community organization members including our partner STEPS Public Art helped celebrate the opening in style.

January 16 2024

 National Monument Awarded

We’re honoured that our team’s design was selected for the new National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan. Team Stimson’s design, Home Base, will be built in Ottawa to serve as a place of gathering, memory and healing.

Read more

June 27 2023

Platinum Award

We’re so pleased to share the news of our recognition from the Grands Prix du Design for our project Lighten Up. The public artwork was awarded the Platine (Platinum) designation at INT. Design magazine’s gala event in Montreal this month.

October 26 2022

RMG Greenspace

We’re excited to share that we’re working with Brook McIlroy landscape architects on transforming the Robert McLaughlin Gallery’s (RMG) outdoor space, transforming it into a community arts greenspace by spring 2023.

Lauren Gould, CEO at the RMG, shares “Our goal is to create a significant outdoor space through creative placemaking and placekeeping that will lead to greater community well-being for all.  This greenspace will encourage people to come downtown and experience a recreational and cultural hub.  We’re delighted to announce that we’ll be working with LeuWebb Projects and Brook McIlroy to bring this project to life.”

Read more

July 29 2022

Have your say for Future Public Art at Mississauga’s Park 535

LeuWebb is participating in Mississauga’s Call for Public Art for Park 535. Check out LeuWebb’s submission Green Light, Yellow Light, Red Light, Blue here.

March 2 2022

Waterfront ReConnect

Waking the Shore, our proposal for re-imagining under the Gardiner Expressway at York Street in Toronto is one of three shortlisted designs for the space. Developed in collaboration with DIALOG and Mulvey & Banani Lighting, our pilot installation creatively re-purposes tires in an expressive placemaking gesture to suggest new ways of conceiving public space in our cities for the 21st century. The competition survey is live until January 19th. Please hop on and provide your comments!

January 10 2022

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Wong Chuk Commons, Hong Kong

Working in timezones halfway around the world was a great exercise AM/PM coordination in contributing to our colleagues at Building Narrative’s competition proposal for the Design Competition on Green Link in Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong. The resulting design, ‘Wong Chuk Commons’, was shortlisted and awarded as a Merit Entry.

January 3 2022

Niagara Spectacle: Currents, Niagara Falls, Ontario

Read Christine’s recent Canadian Architect backpage article about the new sound-and-light show Currents, presented by Niagara Parks and multimedia designer Thinkwell, and housed within the Niagara Parks Power Station.

November 1 2021

Back to the Office?

Christine was interviewed for a recent Canadian Architect article looking how we may return (or not) to working in person.

Read editor Elsa Lam’s thought-provoking piece

October 1 2021

Lighten Up + ArtworxTO

Introducing our newest artwork into Toronto’s public realm, Lighten Up, at the corner of Yonge & Lawrence. This permanent outdoor piece is included in the City of Toronto’s ArtworxTO map and is ready for a visit!

We were also featured this month in an Artist Spotlight on First Capital Realty’s Arts Program platform. Have a read and a listen to the podcast!

September 28 2021

Toronto Urban Design Award 2021

Our Thermally Speaking project continues to garner recognition, this time with a Toronto Urban Design Award of Merit in the Elements category, 2021. This particular award is near and dear to us, with its ties to our city and the kind of civic action we care deeply about.

Read the full Jury Report here!

Thanks again to CityLightsTO and Mulvey Banani Lighting for their collaborative realization with us of this special installation.

September 15 2021

AZ Awards

Our project Thermally Speaking was selected as both the winner and the People’s Choice in Azure Magazine’s 2021 AZ Awards in the category Design – Lighting Installations. Thermally Speaking was among the 22 winners selected from 1,209 submissions by our Azure’s international jury.

Special thanks to the CityLightsTO team, Mulvey Banani Lighting, Artspin, Nuit Blanche Toronto, as well as Patkau Architects and Kearns Mancini Architects for designing such an amazing building to play with!

July 13 2021

Flat Files with Spark Box Studio

We were invited by our friends Chrissy Poitras and Kyle Topping at Spark Box Studios to chat with them via their ongoing Instagram Live series ‘Flat Files’. It was a ton of fun and you can stream back the recording here.

July 11 2021

National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan

The public survey for the National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan closes June 9th.

We’re honoured to be a part of this project with Adrian Stimson and the MBTW Group.

Team Stimson’s collective goal has been to imagine an enduring tribute to honour the commitment and sacrifice of Canadian Armed Forces, public servants and civilians in helping to rebuild Afghanistan.

This goal includes recognizing the support offered by families, friends, and communities in Canada and the people of Afghanistan.

Our hope through our design for ‘Home Base’ is that we have honoured Canada’s gratitude for the sacrifices made by Canadians who lost their lives or were injured. To examine and understand the mission, to create a place where all people can gather to learn, reflect, remember and heal.

June 7 2021

AZ Awards 2021

We’re honoured to have been selected for consideration for Azure Magazine’s AZ Awards 2021, category Lighting Installations, for our project ‘Thermally Speaking’.

Voting closes May 21, 2021, so please hop on over and cast your ballot!

May 11 2021

Podcasting

Christine was a invited as a featured guest speaker on the Architectural Education / Off the Record podcast. Hosted by Ryerson University Architectural Science Associate Professor Vincent Hui, the podcast provides a candid series of interviews on all things related to architectural education.

A preview: “Professor, Practitioner, Artist, and more recently, a newly-appointed Fellow of the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada, Christine Leu gives us a glimpse into her perspectives on design-builds to disastrous studio projects. In this episode shares some tips on how she expanded her career beyond practicing architecture into creative, public artwork and teaching.”

May 10 2021

RAIC EP | IRAC RP Interviews with Emerging Practitioners

Bringing this one out of the archives, a nice little video from when we were interviewed by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) way back in 2017.

This video features excerpts from interviews with emerging architectural and urban design professionals in which they discuss their experiences and approach to design practice. The video features: Steven Beites (Beites & Co.); Christine Leu and Alan Webb (LeuWebb); Ariane Cote-Belisle, Raphael Brissette, Maggie Cabana, and Olivier Lajeunesse-Travers (Microclimat); Maxim Bragoli (Pepiniere&Co); Mark Erickson and Matthew Kennedy (Studio North); Vanessa Fong [pictured above] (VFA and The Fold Collaborative Workspace).

April 8 2021

Stirring it up

Our feature interview in STIR World was published this month. A thoughtful conversation with author Dilpreet Bhullar provided some interesting insights into our creative process and projects.

March 27 2021

Architecture & film

Alan presented his research on Gordon Matta-Clark’s film work at the 2021 Architecture & Film symposium this month. ‘The Gravity of Perception: Unearthing the Subterranean Films of Gordon Matta-Clark’ examines the works ‘Substraits: Underground Dailies’ (1976) and ‘Sous-Sols de Paris’ (1977) in the context of architecture and the cinematic lens.

February 20 2021

National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan

We’re honoured to be working with Adrian Stimson and the MBTW Group in developing a design proposal for the National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan. Team Stimson would like to express our appreciation to Veterans Affairs Canada, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the National Capital Commission and the Phase I jury for selecting our team for the shortlist for Phase II of this design competition.

We will honour and reflect upon the consultations with veterans, families and other stakeholders in our research, creative exploration and design process. The mission was and continues to be an important and complicated part of both Canada and Afghanistan’s history. Our hope is to create a monument that expresses Canada’s gratitude for the sacrifices made by Canadians who lost their lives or were injured. To examine and understand the mission, to create a place where all people can gather to learn, reflect, remember and heal.

August 25 2020

Digital Bursaries

Alan and Christine were each awarded an Artscape Daniels Launchpad Digital Bursary to explore and create new work in the digital realm.

The bursary provide a unique opportunity to develop work drawing upon the resources, infrastructure and creative support network of the Launchpad.

August 7 2020

A Fellow of the RAIC

Christine Leu was named to the RAIC College of Fellows for 2020. The College of Fellows of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) bestows Fellowship to RAIC members in recognition of outstanding achievement. Christine joins Anne Cormier, Patricia Swanson, Dan McNeil, D’Arcy Arthurs and other architects from across Canada in this year’s cohort.

April 9 2020

Towards an Ethical Smart City

We had an opportunity to guide the talented students of the Institute Without Boundaries in the development of their exhibition ‘Playroom TO: Towards an Ethical Smart City’, part of the DesignTO Festival 2020. Examining the potential of ethical smart cities to solve global challenges, the exhibition invites guests to contribute their values and ideas in building innovative models for the future.

January 19 2020

Site Work

Our multi-part public artwork at TTC’s Wilson subway station is taking shape this month as elements are being installed on-site. The series of pieces located throughout the several levels and spaces in the station will be visible and touchable as people navigate their respective transportation trajectories.

December 12 2019

Nuit Blanche: Process and Collaboration

Watch the development and process of our project Thermally Speaking for Nuit Blanche 2019, realized with collaborative support and engagement from the CITYLights Toronto initiative.

December 1 2019

Awards Season

We had the good fortune of being awarded Honourable Mention at the City of London’s 2019 Urban Design Awards for our Terry Fox commemorative landscape artwork ‘Following in his Footsteps’. Realized in collaboration with Robert Cram Workshop, the project provides an experiential perspective into Terry Fox’s journey, inviting participants to physically engage with the pathway and gardens along London’s Thames River.

We were also nominated for a City of Edmonton Urban Design Award in the Urban Fragments category for our project ‘Animal Family’ at the Edmonton Valley Zoo.

November 28 2019

Thermally Transmitted

Our transformation of the Fort York Visitor Centre saw thousands of visitors over the course of Nuit Blanche 2019 Toronto, with participants engaging the work in surprising ways. The success of the project was the result of a collaboration with Mulvey & Banani Lighting and volunteers, along with close communication with curators Rui Pimenta and Layne Hinton, as well as the staff at the Fort York Visitor Centre and City of Toronto. Stay tuned for full photographic and video documentation.

October 8 2019

Edmonton Urban Design Awards – Vote!

Our ‘Animal Family’ project, opened this summer at the Edmonton Valley Zoo, is up for an Urban Design Award with the City of Edmonton.

Vote for our project for a People’s Choice Award!

October 1 2019

Thermally Speaking at Nuit Blanche 2019

LeuWebb Projects is a part of this October’s Nuit Blanche Toronto, with our project Thermally Speaking. The independent project, realized in collaboration with Mulvey & Banani, will take over the Fort York Visitor Centre, within the Creation: Destruction zone of the festival. More details to follow…

August 25 2019

Publishing Long Division

August saw media international coverage for our ‘Long Division’ project in several publications, including Glocal Design Magazine (Mexico), mooool design (China), Floor Nature (Italy). We’re happy that the project is able to reach a larger audience and potentially engage in a wider discourse around the nature of barriers and divisions across a variety of global contexts.

August 24 2019

Works in progress

Fabrication work is underway for our ‘Outside the Lines’ public art piece for the TTC’s Wilson Subway Station. Working with Punchclock Metalworks, the sinuous curves of the elements are taking shape.

July 17 2019

AZ Awards Gala 2019

We created a special installation for the Azure Magazine AZ Awards Gala at the Evergreen Brick Works. Incorporating found materials and working with the scale and texture of the amazing Kiln Building, the work came to life for one evening.

June 17 2019

Long Division

Our large-scale outdoor installation ‘Long Division’ is part of the Public Volumes exhibition taking place at multiple sites. ‘Long Division’ engages the site of Mississauga’s Bradley Museum, employing the fence as a tool for considering issues of exclusion, control, security and sanctuary. The piece invites visitors into the experience of divided space, public and private, open potentials and closed paths.

May 17 2019

‘The Blow Up’ at Digifest

We produced an interactive piece for Digifest 2019 in Toronto, part of a 3 day design & tech festival and startup event, organized by the Digital Media and Gaming Incubator at George Brown College. ‘The Blow Up’ explores the evolving development and obsolescence of consumer technologies, repurposing discarded camcorders and digital cameras to drive an expanded photobooth.

May 9 2019

Grow Op 2019

The Grow Op 2019 exhibition curated by LeuWebb Projects came together as a remarkable collection of artists and their works, broadly exploring the theme of ENERGY. Including an artist talk by Maria Thereza Alves and Mary Kavanagh, with a Bullfrog Energy award to the Stomata Collective, OALA award to Noni Kaur, jury prize to Tosca Teran/Nanotopia, and Seed award to Justin Langille and Jennifer Martin.

April 17 2019

Curating Grow Op

We’re excited about the upcoming seventh edition of Grow Op opening next week at the Gladstone Hotel, our fourth in the role of curators. This year’s show is the biggest yet, with over 25 projects across all four floors of the hotel. It’s a jam packed exhibition with events happening each day, April 17th through the 21st, encouraging participants to engage with the artists in the critical dialogues taking place around climate, landscape, and ecology.

March 3 2019

Designlines, Issue 2, 2019

Our public artwork for the TTC’s Wilson subway station, ‘Outside the Lines’, is featured in the current issue of Designlines magazine. Look for the series of elements to be distributed throughout the station beginning this summer.

February 17 2019

Amplify Culture Summit

Christine Leu recently spoke about art as placemaking as part of the Amplify Culture Summit 2018 at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ontario, sharing the stage with artists and designers Sage Paul and Jesse Stewart.

November 6 2018

Following in his Footsteps

We were honoured to have our Terry Fox commemorative landscape, Following in his Footsteps, publicly unveiled during the 2018 Terry Fox Run in London, Ontario. Created as a living, dynamic space along the Thames River, the work integrates imprints of Terry’s iconic running gait, geology from the beginning and end of his journey, and native plantings that highlight key points of Terry’s story.

We worked with Robert Cram Workshop in developing the landscape elements of the artwork and Maker Sculpture in casting the unique pavers.

October 6 2018

Out of the Box

Material and testing was underway this month as we carried out a site visit to the Edmonton Valley Zoo to survey our ‘Animal Family’ integrated public art work being readied for install. The piece was fabricated in sections and transported in carefully packed crates, colour coded!

Read all about it in our interview with the Edmonton Arts Council here.

August 30 2018

Finishing Touches

We’re putting the finishing touches on our very rare limited edition of seven unique bronze pieces of our Flotsam Particles series. We’ll be unveiling the seven sculptures at Swipe Design, 401 Richmond, as part of the Toronto Design Offsite Festival, January 14th through January 21st.

Please contact us directly for purchase.

Thanks to Maker Technical Sculpture Services for their skilled foundry work.

January 13 2018

Lighting the Winter Night

We recently mounted our Shine & Shimmer installation at Ontario Place for the inaugural Winter Light exhibition taking place from December 8th to March 18th. The West Island of Ontario Place will be home to 12 illuminated exhibits by 20 local artists. Woven through the fabric of the landscape, the exhibition will guide visitors through a journey of exploration all while enjoying the beautiful winter setting.

December 13 2017

TODO’ing in 2018

We’re excited to begin the bronze casting process for a very limited edition of our Flotsam/Jetsam Cinespheres for exhibition at Swipe Design as part of the Toronto Design Offsite Festival (TODO) in January, 2018.

November 13 2017

Site Visiting

We had a good trip out to Edmonton and Calgary to connect with our colleagues at the Edmonton Arts Council, Marc Boutin Architectural Collaborative, and Heavy Industries as we prepare our Animal Family piece for installation at the Edmonton Valley Zoo’s award-winning new Urban Barn, currently under construction. Of course Sylvester the resident zoo cat was welcome for the meeting, he just wasn’t allowed outside!

October 13 2017

Closer to the edit

We’ve created a kinetic sculpture that recalls the spirits of vanished means of production for EDIT: Expo for Design Innovation & Technology, at the former Lever Soap factory on the Don River in Toronto. Running from September 28 to October, 2017, the show seeks to provide a platform for ideas that can feed the planet sustainably, build more resilient cities, expand education access, and deliver innovative healthcare solutions to all corners of the earth.

With thanks to the Ontario Arts Council for their support of this project.

September 13 2017

What comes after the flood?

We’re back curating the sixth edition of Grow Op at the Gladstone Hotel in April 18-22, 2018. In the upcoming exhibition, we contemplate AFTER THE FLOOD. What lies beyond once the floodwaters recede? What emerges once the smoke clears? As cataclysmic climate events multiply in tandem with our species’ continuously expanding footprint, we are re-conceiving our relationships with the organic and inorganic world around us in unprecedented ways. The call for submissions closes September 30th.

Image by Drew Desharnais Photography

August 13 2017

Moulding + Casting

‘Flotsam Particles’, a tangent of our ‘Flotsam/Jetsam’ work for In/Future makes an appearance at the ‘Parting Lines’ group exhibition curated by Lauren Schaffer and Camille Rauton at OCAD University’s Continuing Studies gallery.

June 14 2017

On the Newstands

LeuWebb Projects was highlighted with the cover shot of our ‘Radiantactivity’ installation in this May’s issue of Canadian Architect magazine. Christine’s RAIC Allied Arts Gold Medal 2017 was the feature of an expanded article within the issue as well.

Cover image by Johnny Lam

May 24 2017

Art Underground

Join us June 5th for a Public Art Concept Presentation of our proposal Outside the Lines for Wilson Station on the Toronto Transit Commission’s subway system. The proposed project seeks to capture the site’s capacity for dynamic movement through bursts of colourful sculptural forms. Rather than a singular static art piece, Outside the Lines is playfully fluid. Popping out of walls, shooting through floors and coiling around columns, it flows through the sprawling station in the form of ten vibrant installations.

May 14 2017

Grown Op

The fifth annual Grow Op 2017 wrapped up earlier this month, an incredible exposition of contemporary art exploring themes of landscape, ecology and design that we co-curated, taking over all 4 floors of the Gladstone Hotel. Thanks to the amazing work of the 39 participating artists who created 30 innovative projects that engaged and enlightened visitors over the course the show.

Catch up on some of the coverage in Azure Magazine, Toronto Life, GROUND, and Canadian Architect.

Image: ‘Extreme Cloud Gazing’, Julie Gladstone (photo by Gabby Frank)

April 29 2017

Allied Arts Medal 2017

We’re happy to announce that Christine Leu, on behalf of LeuWebb Projects, has been awarded the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s (RAIC) Allied Arts Medal for 2017.

The RAIC bestows the Allied Arts Medal every two years. The award honours a Canadian artist or designer for outstanding achievement in artwork created to be integrated with architecture. Any medium allied to architecture is eligible including murals, sculpture, glass, fabric, lighting, furniture, water, sound, site-specific installation, video, digital and industrial and landscape design.

“Each one of Christine Leu’s permanent works and temporary installations manifests a thoughtful and thought-provoking approach to its architectural or environmental context,” said the three-member jury.

“This is an extraordinary body of work that bridges art and architecture,” said the jury. “It demonstrates skill in response to site interpretation. There is a high-quality craft element.”

The medal will be formally presented in May at the RAIC’s Festival of Architecture in Ottawa.

March 21 2017

Books Unbound

LeuWebb Projects presented “Books Unbound: Film, Vinyl, Paper” as a Come Up To My Room design talk at the Gladstone Hotel.

Exploring the question of the disposability and destruction of books, LeuWebb Projetcs discussed their installation from the 2011 Scotiabank Nuit Blanche titled ‘Film, Vinyl, Paper’. The piece used film canisters, books, and records from Yonge Street’s disappearing media merchants to reimagine a non-virtual and un-networked public space.

At a time when information is more readily accessible than ever, does it matter whether a book is saved or destroyed? After all, the Platonic view holds that a book is simply a vessel for content, a perishable facsimile of eternal ideas. Aristotle would have seen things differently, barring the movers from touching his library as he tried in vain to downsize to a more manageable condo.

This past year, for the first time, ebooks outsold all physical books combined on Amazon.com. In Toronto, used book sellers now get so many people trying to unload old books that many no longer accept books, period. It seems we’ve reached the proverbial tipping point, with Gutenberg’s press being nudged off the edge of a cliff with the click of a mouse. So what does it matter now if a book is saved or destroyed?

As LeuWebb Projects, we recently explored this question in our installation ‘Film, Vinyl, Paper’ at this year’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche. In an attempt to make legible the changing nature of media, commerce and public space, we used Canada’s main thoroughfare, Yonge Street, as a partial case study. Using the physical media from recently shuttered stores, we created a play and rest zone in the Yonge Street roadway directly adjacent to the demolished Sam the Record Man block. For one night, books became tables, records became building blocks and film canisters became stools for the thousands of people passing by.

Finding the materials for constructing the piece was remarkably easy. School libraries now routinely send boxes of old books to be shredded and recycled. University libraries overflow with donated books bequeathed to them by well-meaning alumni. Crates of vinly LPs lie mouldy in basements across the city, waiting to be unearthed. These once prized posessions and family heirlooms passed down to later generations are now emminently disposable materials.

Through the placement of these media, and books in particular, in new contexts and situations, we may gain a better understanding of their societal, cultural and historical value, and get closer to a varied reading of the book as form instead of as simply content.

January 29 2011