Hi! My name is Zoya Salam, a third-year coop student currently pursuing a Bachelor of Architectural Sciences at Toronto Metropolitian University.
As an aspiring architect I dedicate myself to designing experiential, community-centric architecture that aims to improve the lives of all Toronto citizens.
The Exhibition Station is imagined as a piece of civic infrastructure that stretches along the rail corridor to create continuity where the city usually breaks apart. It isn’t a single object but a field of crossings. The building is a way to disperse the heavy flow of people leaving Exhibition Place and fold it back into the neighbourhood. The brick base carries the weight of Liberty Village’s industrial past, acting as a grounded layer that absorbs the movement above it. A steel frame rises from this base and holds a series of modular rooms that include shops, classrooms, and studios
MOBILITY MARKETPLACE
2025
typology: public transit hub
location: Exhibition GO, Toronto
software: revit | enscape | photoshop
each slightly offset, yet tied together by the same structural form.
The building shows how it’s made. Beams, joints, and bolts remain exposed, turning construction into part of the experience. Light moves through the gaps between modules, softening the scale of the frame and letting air pass through the structure. Rather than appearing as a finished object, the station reads as something that can keep growing or adapting with the city. Between the weight of the brick and the lift of the steel, it finds balance.
WEST-FACE SECTION
The parti diagram outlines a sequence of spatial operations that transform the station from a single crossing into a distributed field of movement. Beginning as a bridge and tunnel, the form duplicates and fractures to accommodate multiple paths across the rail corridor. These shifts allow the building to connect neighbourhoods while dispersing pedestrian flow. Circulation is pulled through, around, and between volumes, producing a porous infrastructure that prioritizes continuity, adaptability, and layered movement rather than a singular architectural object.
THE METABOLIC CITY
Modular community centres can keep the neighbourhood’s social life moving with its changing population.
Pockets of energy and food also steady daily life during disruptions and create a neighbourhood that can support itself
Gentle height increases pull more residents into the district, support local services, and make daily trips walkable.
THE RESILIENT CITY
THE COMPACT CITY
CIRCULATION DIAGRAM
The station is a continuous field of movement rather than a single linear path. Public mobility routes form the primary spine, branching into secondary loops that pass through commercial, community, and lounge spaces as identified in the legend. Vertical circulation anchors these flows at key nodes, allowing movement to shift between levels.
2nd FLOOR PLAN
INTERIOR
PERSPECTIVE - SECOND FLOOR
The sawtooth form allows daylight to penetrate deep into the station while reinforcing the rhythm of movement along the rail corridor. Its repeated geometry breaks down the building’s scale and supports natural ventilation between modules. The tensile modular spaces introduce flexibility, allowing programs to expand, contract, or shift over time. Together, these systems create a lightweight, adaptable architecture that balances structural clarity with spatial permeability and user comfort.
1:100 SCALE MODEL, NORTH-WEST FACE
1:100 SCALE MODEL, SOUTH-EAST FACE
TENSILE MODULE COVER: MANIPULATING FORM
MODULE STRUCTURE AND FRAMING
SERVICE SPACES AS SCULPTURAL: TRANSLUCENT BATHROOMS
EXPLODED AXONOMETRIC DIAGRAM
TESSITURA
2024
typology: community library
location: 412 Church St, Toronto
software: revit | rhino | photoshop
Tessitura is a small-scale community library designed to weave together people, craft, and place. Its name, meaning “texture” or “weave,” reflects the building’s concept of interconnection.
The simple concrete form is enlivened by strips of corten steel that layer across the façade like threads in a textile, filtering sunlight and creating a sense of movement. Inside, warm wood tones and a dedicated textile collection celebrate making, materiality, and community heritage.
Tessitura is both a library and a loomt that binds together learning, creativity, and belonging
within the evolving fabric of its neighbourhood.
The interior is organized as a sequence of intimate reading rooms and open workspaces that encourage both quiet study and collective making. Views between programs reinforce visual connectivity, while the steel screen mediates the boundary between public and private. Together, these strategies position the building as a civic anchor that supports everyday use while allowing the architecture to quietly express its craft-based identity.
EAST-FACE ELEVATION
EAST-FACE SECTION
INTENSIVE GREENROOF DETAL
MODELS: EXPERIMENTS IN MATERIALITY
The design of Tessitura emerged through a hands-on iterative modeling process that tested material and light. A concrete sketch model established the building’s mass and solidity. This was followed by a loose thread model woven around wooden sticks, exploring porosity and movement. A tighter weave then refined the system, directly informing the corten façade. This process clarified how light could be filtered and revealed, shaping the building’s final daylighting and tectonic expression.
INTERFOLD DUPLEX
2025
typology: laneway housing
location: 47 Stafford St, Toronto
software: revit | enscape | photoshop
This infill housing project aims to create highdensity housing in the Trinity Bellwood neighborhood in Toronto. The 4-floor building incorporates walk-up housing, aimed towards the student population in the area.
The materiality of the building aims to bridge the private and pedestrian realms through the extensive exterior sitting spaces and long, horizontal lines throughout the building facade. The organic materiality of the building, being a mix of ash treated oak and redwood provide warmth to the overlooked street, bolstering the pedestrian
experience of the area.
The project looks to the future of the streetscape, creating a duplex that can be terraced to create a high-density housing block while maintaining a human-scaled rhythm along the sidewalk. This approach allows the typology to adapt to varying lot sizes and urban conditions, offering a flexible framework for incremental densification without disrupting the character of the surrounding residential fabric.
PARTI DIAGRAM
UPPER UNIT
Student Residence
CIRCULATION DIAGRAM
UPPER UNIT - Second Floor Plan
GROUND UNIT
Family Residence
UPPER UNIT - Third Floor Plan
LEFT: SOUTH FACE - SECTION PERSPECTIVE
ST. MARY’S PARISH CHURCH
The presence of St. Mary’s Parish Church informed the project’s scale and material sensitivity, encouraging a restrained massing and warm façade treatment. Its civic role reinforced the importance of creating a respectful streetscape that supports gathering, pause, and everyday pedestrian life.
NIAGRA STREET ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
The proximity of Niagara Street Junior Public School influenced the project’s scale and material choices, encouraging a quieter residential expression, increased passive surveillance, and generous sidewalk setbacks that support student movement, safety, and everyday community activity along the street.
INTERIOR PERSPECTIVE - BASEMENT WORKSPACE
2024
typology: community bird-hide
location: High Park, Toronto
software: rhino | enscape | photoshop
This community space acts as a respite for the pedestrians of High Park, housing a community gallery and primary student learning centre. The looping form of the community centre invites visitors on a journey that culminates in a view of the Humber River.
The materiality of the structure emulates the colours and smells of the immediate greenscape, using Red Oak and Sugar Maple structural and cladding elements to form the building. This lowimpact building aims to blend into the surrounding foliage, a place for visitors to hike up and
explore, like a natural feature of the urban park. The building is organized around a gentle ramp system that ensures universal accessibility while reinforcing a continuous spatial experience.
Openings are carefully positioned to frame views of the landscape and modulate daylight throughout the interior. Construction strategies prioritize minimal site disturbance, with prefabricated timber elements reducing on-site impact and allowing the park’s ecological systems to remain largely intact.
LONGITUDINAL SECTION
VIEWING PLATFORM PERSPECTIVE - SECOND FLOOR
FLOOR DETAIL
(TOP
TO BOTTOM)
1. RED OAK FLOORING
2. MOISTURE BARRIER
3. HIGH DENSITY FIBERBOARD
4. FIRE RETARDANT
5. PLYWOOD SUBLAYER
WALL STRUCTURE DETAIL
(INTERIOR TO EXTERIOR)
3.
4. INSULATION BOARD
5. FIRE RETARDANT
6. PLYWOOD SHEATHING
7. HORIZONTAL
8.
1. SUGAR MAPLE CLADDING
2. PLYWOOD SHEATHING
VAPOUR BARRIER
BATTENS
RED OAK CLADDING
6. STEEL COMPRESSION RING
CAMP WINSTON
2025
typology: design build - sensory yurt
location: 1147 River Ln, Kilworthy Ont.
software: rhino | photoshop
This design-build project for Camp Winston is currently in fabrication, focused on creating an inclusive, sensorily considerate interior for a yurt to be used by children with developmental disabilities.
The design lines the perimeter with modular wooden shelves, benches, and alcoves that can be rearranged to accommodate a wide range of sensory needs and preferences. This flexibility allows the space to adapt between calm retreat and active engagement, reflecting the camp’s commitment to comfort, creativity, and
accessibility through thoughtful design. Material choices prioritize tactile warmth, durability, and safety, with rounded edges and natural finishes supporting a calming environment.
The construction process emphasizes hands-on fabrication and collaboration, allowing the design to be tested and refined at full scale. By combining adaptability with careful detailing, the project demonstrates how small interventions can meaningfully support inclusive play, learning, and rest within a shared community space.
ZOYA SALAM - SELECTED WORK
team: Avery Jordan, Christine Ho, Rafaela Sposito
The Camp Winston project involved an on-site trip that informed both design and fabrication decisions. Measurements, user needs, and spatial constraints were documented directly within the yurt. Fabrication was completed through handson prototyping and full-scale mock-ups, allowing details to be tested, adjusted, and refined. This process strengthened the connection between design intent, material behavior, and inclusive construction methods.
CIRCULATE CUT AWAY
A 47-unit mid-rise housing concept aims to address the missing middle housing crisis in Toronto. The building hosts 3 bedroom townhomes to studio units, housing a wide demographic of local residents. Units on the ground floor are 2-stories, emulating the townhouse streetscape. The circulation for this housing model is based around outdoor, communal circulation pathways and addresses the sites’ critical location, having three street-facing facades along pedestrian walkways.
Variation in the building form and courtyard
NEIGHBORHOOD STACK
2025
typology: mid-rise residential
location: 403 Richmond st W, Toronto
software: revit | enscape | photoshop
throughout the building massing aim to a smooth pedestrian experience through the intersection. while improving daylight penetration, natural ventilation, and visual connections between units and public space. These strategies help reduce perceived building scale, support passive environmental performance, and encourage informal social interaction within shared circulation areas, reinforcing the project’s integration with the surrounding urban fabric.
