Sheryl Boyle, PhD research creation project, the craftsperson's interdisciplinary table of delight

Professor Boyle supervises immersive materials research and innovative design for manufacturing and assembly (DfMA) processes, including work in concrete and lime, cellulose, historic pigments and construction systems that participate in a circular economy. She is a member of the Concordia Centre for Sensory Studies and an advocate for sensory design and hands-on knowledge acquisition. She is currently working on a MITACS with Ottawa’s leading digitally-fabricated housing manufacturer, Advanced Building Innovation Company (ABIC) with Professor Jerry Hacker and student intern Corina Amarioaeri. Her CSALT lab employs a team of 7 students who have collaborated on a project using robots to 3D print clay in a topology optimized form for the Canadaian Clay and Glass Gallery “Robotic Clay” exhibit. Her ongoing research with industry partner, the Canadian Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (CPCI) has supported four student research assistants at CSALT in 2022/23 to develop 3D printing technologies and experiments with Ultra-High Performance Concrete in an iterative design process. In 2021 she completed two MITACS Accelerate Grants; one with Robin Papp and Hurd Solutions (Ottawa) developing sustainable hemp building products, and a second with Jesse Bird and Zeoform IP Pty to research architectural solutions using Nano/Microfibrillated Cellulose (NMFC) and hemp.

Professor Boyle was also an investigator on the Urbandale Centre for Home Energy Research project which included funding from Canadian Foundation for Innovation, Ontario Research Fund, Urbandale Construction and many local sponsors. She is currently preparing new research projects that address DfMA (design for manufacture and assembly) using cobots (collaborative robots), working at model scale.

In 2021 Professor Boyle completed er PhD in Sensory Studies at Concordia University entitled “Fragrant Walls and the Table of Delight: Sensory (re)construction as a Way of Knowing, the case of Thornbury Castle. This research creation dissertation posits that architects can benefit from understanding a place and time through diverse and intersecting modes of knowing through engaging in multi-modal exercises in making. The case study existed as an inhabited construction site between 1508 and 1521 (unfinished) near Bristol in England and provided a uniquely porous space that brought together diverse craftspeople living in an active building site.