During his undergraduate years, Josh Wallace studied theatre set design, psychology, anthropology, and geology. He also had a background in music and woodworking. “I considered majoring in each as I enjoyed them all very much,” he recalls.

Discovering that architecture combined all his interests in one practice, Wallace decided architecture would be the next step. After earning a Bachelor of Environmental Design Studies at Dalhousie University in 2014, he first worked at his brother’s butcher shop in Ottawa and then travelled and worked in Vietnam.

In 2016, he entered the three-year Master of Architecture program at Carleton University, an experience he describes as “challenging, rewarding, and expansive.” Among the challenges he overcame was disentangling self-worth from work. “Cultivating a level of non-attachment to my work output has led to easier creativity and more enjoyment.”

Wallace graduated in 2019 with an award-winning thesis, Listening to Climate Change, in which he co-mingled architecture and music to ask “how can climate change be woven into human imagination and memory through sound?” He won the RAIC Student Medal for Outstanding Thesis Work and Academic Excellence and the Canadian Architect Magazine Student Award of Excellence for his thesis.

A job hunter during the pandemic, he was attracted by small-town life. Wallace is now enjoying the beauty of British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast and is happily employed as an intern architect at a two-person firm, Keck Architecture +Design. “There is an opportunity for creative exploration and the development of technical skills, construction knowledge, and craft.”

Read his reflections on his journey below.

What did you do before the Master of Architecture program?

After finishing a Bachelor of Environmental Design at Dalhousie University (2014), I worked at my brother’s butchery in Ottawa. A good friend of mine asked if I wanted to travel around Vietnam for six weeks. I was ready to discover something new, so I tagged along.

When we got to Ho Chi Minh City, I remembered an architecture firm in the city whose work I loved — Vo Trong Nghia Architects (VTN). Their work involves institutional buildings and housing, low-cost housing prefabs, and remarkable bamboo research and construction. They have developed an array of techniques involving the inclusion of as much vegetation throughout their buildings as possible, a meaningful endeavor as Ho Chi Minh City has lost almost all of its green space amidst rapid urbanization. I dropped off a portfolio.

During our travels, I landed a volunteer position in Sarawak, Malaysia on the island of Borneo. My six-week trip quickly became six months, as I helped in the planning of a new longhouse in an Iban village after the previous one had burned down. My original role was to be a construction hand, but because construction had been delayed, I offered to be the village draftsperson, interviewing residents and turning their design ideas into drawings that became visual aids in village meetings.

By the time my role had wrapped up, VTN Architects had offered me an internship back in Ho Chi Minh City. Six months became one year! In 2015, I returned to Ottawa, worked at Pure Kitchen for some time, and then began the MArch program.

What led you to architecture?

In the first two years of my undergrad at Dalhousie, I was studying a wide array of subjects – theatre set design, psychology, anthropology, and geology. I had a background in music and woodworking. I considered majoring in each as I enjoyed them all very much.

 I heard about an open house in the Dalhousie architecture building and decided to attend. I was surrounded by fascinating student work that excited me and decided that an architectural education was a great next step.

What I discovered was that architecture combined all my interests into one practice. It involved designing places and atmospheres (theatre set design), shaped and was shaped by the human mind (psychology), was an active participant in cultural production (anthropology), was tectonic (geology), had a flow, rhythm, and timbre (music), and provided a chance to develop one’s craft (woodworking).

How would you describe your experience of the MArch 1 program?

Challenging, rewarding and expansive. Having the time and space to explore and test ideas while having them reviewed by your peers, and by the highly developed faculty, was an amazing opportunity. My failed attempts were just as valuable (often more valuable) than my successes, as they provided the chance to truly learn something. The program was remarkably demanding, but it was through that continuous challenge that I discovered I was capable of things I didn’t know were possible. It takes so much time and effort to uncover who you are as a designer. While that is a life’s work that never truly ends, joining the MArch program drastically accelerated that process for me.

What was the best part?

I really enjoyed collaborating with other students. Everyone around me was so brilliant in their own way, and finding a way of working that brought each person’s best to a project provided a fantastic ground for learning from other people.

I also loved crits, both as a student and a guest critic. It’s a little nerve-wracking to present your work sometimes, but crit days are thrilling because you get an in-depth look at many projects, and many perspectives towards them. It’s a structured rapid-fire idea session where so much can be learned in a very short period. The trick is to take good notes and try to integrate their lessons into your working process later.

What was the biggest challenge/obstacle?

While this wasn’t true all of the time, I had fallen into the trap of associating the quality of my work with my self-worth. I think this is somewhat common, but it meant my sense of self was precarious: when I liked my work, I felt great, but when I didn’t like my work… you get the idea. Architecture school is already demanding, so when we self-impose additional pressures toward ourselves, it makes the design process more stressful than it needs to be, and less enjoyable.

 How did you overcome it?

I attended Carleton’s From Intention to Action program, and with a counsellor, began disentangling my self-worth from my work. She and I only met a handful of times, but it started the process. By the third year, during my thesis, I had a healthier relationship with my work, and I’m continuing to experiment with mindfulness for creativity and design.

Making things is my favourite thing to do in the world, and I’ve found that cultivating a level of non-attachment to my work output has led to easier creativity and more enjoyment. It doesn’t mean being aloof, working less hard, or having less ambitious ideas. It just means allowing whatever is unfolding creatively to unfold without identifying too strongly with it, judging it too harshly, or letting your desire for it to evolve keep you from appreciating it as it is right now. Design is iterative by nature, and the journey from site analysis to a refined proposal involves many iterations. Why not allow the journey to be just as beautiful as the destination?

In your master’s thesis, how did you explore and develop your interests?

I became curious about how architecture and music could participate in a global emergency. While I recognized the legitimacy of the frightening climate data, I also recognized that interacting with climate data is a largely intellectual exercise that doesn’t engage the body or a human scale.

Architecture, being spatial, and music, with its ability to communicate changes over time and demonstrate impermanence, appeared to be suitable mediums to help bridge the gap between the data of climate change and the stories of our everyday lives.

I began exploring how the languages of architecture and music could co-mingle in the design process.

There were many attempts in many directions, but when I began visualizing sound with certain software, it allowed faculty and students to engage in the work more fully, perhaps because architects have strong visual skills. Visualizing sound provided direction for a lot of the project’s work production.

The research phase included recording the sounds produced by the shifting Athabasca Glacier and visually cataloguing these recordings alongside human music.

In the first semester, I audited one of Jesse Stewart’s music composition classes. The music students would bring their audio works, and I would bring my attempts at combining music and architectural languages. I got to hear their work (which was incredible), learn about composition, and have some really exciting conversations regarding the intersections and parallels between music and architecture.

In the second semester, I joined a weekly online seminar called Deep Listening. Deep Listening was founded by the late Pauline Oliveros and involves a meditative practice of listening to sound and making sound. While my instrument designs focused on a distant site (the Athabasca Glacier), Deep Listening helped me experience my surroundings in new ways. This created a feedback loop: sound meditations at home helped me think about sound at the glacier, and hearing the sounds of the glacier modified my perception of sound at home.

It's generally not required that a research and design project involve a personal practice of some kind, such as daily listening meditations, but a repetitive practice can yield very unexpected results in a way that is emergent and serendipitous.

How is the master’s program enriched by having students from diverse backgrounds, not only undergraduate architectural design? 

A diverse range of backgrounds creates a diverse range of viewpoints and approaches to design. In addition to traditional ones, other forms of knowledge are brought forth in the studio environment, expanding what architecture is capable of. It enables students to discover how their unique knowledge and the knowledge of their peers can inform architectural thinking.

What were you looking for when you graduated? 

I wanted to stay in Ottawa for some time to be close to family, and then work in an architecture firm that had a good office culture and pursued creativity in their design work. When COVID-19 emerged in Canada, I stopped looking for an architecture job and helped my brother’s butchery safely stay open by designing an airlock for his storefront. I also did some research on COVID-19 and retail spaces with Associate Professor Zachary Colbert.

How did you look for work?

While working for Professor Colbert at the Carleton Climate Futures Design Laboratory, my partner and I were bouncing around small British Columbia towns while I sent applications to firms in Vancouver. Finding work was challenging. It was the early months of the pandemic, a time when job security was precarious for many industries and hiring slowed.

We moved to an Airbnb in a town called Gibsons (pop. 4,600) on the Sunshine Coast for three weeks. My Airbnb host knew an architect up the street called Scott Keck of Keck Architecture + Design who was looking for help. Scott hired me, and that Airbnb host has been my landlord for over two years now. It’s a very short commute! They tell me this is how small towns work.

I received an offer from a firm in Toronto, but working in a high-density city became less attractive during this time. Working in a low-density town became more attractive for its reduced risk of contracting the virus and ease of movement. It’s also beautiful here, with wilderness all around.

I wanted to work for Scott because of his excellent portfolio and ability to run a successful company on his own. It was also attractive because it was a small practice — I am the company’s first employee. I’d heard that working in a smaller company often meant working on many aspects of a project and that has proven to be true.

What are you doing now?

Currently I’m doing construction administration for a small addition in our neighbourhood, as well as a design development drawing set for a new house in Pender Harbour. Other projects on the go are a multi-family residence and duplex in Vancouver. Outside of work, I’m also developing a schematic design for a house on Bowen Island with an amazing local artist called Robert Studer, and am always playing with little things in music, writing and design.

What has working been like?

Because the company is so small, I work directly with Scott. He’s a great designer and mentor, and I feel lucky that I get to develop a wide range of skills here. I joined the company amidst a boom season and there has certainly never been a shortage of work. We mostly do single-family houses, renovations, and additions. Especially at the start of my career, I like the shorter project durations these building types offer, as I find it easier to get a handle on the design and construction process through faster cycles of execution.

What projects have you worked on?

• Multi-family, duplex, and single-family homes in Vancouver, some in progress and others completed. Schematic design through to construction documentation and all the necessary permit applications.

• Single-family homes and renovations along the Sunshine Coast. Schematic design through to construction documentation and all the necessary permit applications.

• Building the company website: publication drawings, project photography and image curation, and project narrative.

Are you happy in your work?

I am. There is an opportunity for creative exploration, and the development of technical skills, construction knowledge, and craft. I have a great mentor who is a highly skilled designer with no shortage of ideas.

What would you tell people thinking of:

Doing STUDIO FIRST?

It’s a short-term way of learning if you want to make a long-term commitment. To me, that’s a good use of time.

Doing the three-year MArch?

It’s a great program. The diversity of thought and ideas due to the students coming from a wide range of disciplines, as well as the incredible faculty, makes for some very creative and meaningful experiences. It will expand your definition of architecture.