emily allan


Speaker 01
design & fabrication
2022
Modular Speaker Prototype

Emily rehoused a pair of JVC SK-101 speakers with custom  3/4” baltic birch plywood casing and nesting pedestals as a modular speaker system prototype.

CNC support from Arnel Espanol.
Studio Rat
plastics, inflatables, and community building
2018 - present
Co-founded with  Dominique Di Libero in 2018.

Studio Rat is a site for independent and collaborative investigations on plastics, inflatables, and community building (three things that are more closely connected than you might imagine). As an emerging creative practice,  Studio Rat pursues research and experimental design work between the cities of Toronto and Montréal. Through this collective and their on-going research project ‘Making-with Plastic’, Emily and Dominique explore DIY practices in design and craft. The duo are committed to experimental fabrication techniques and resource-sharing rooted in circular design principles. 

🐁️ learn more about Studio Rat ︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎

Unnamed Laneway
design, illustration
2019
Awarded Best in Show at YES 2019.

At the back-end of our cities is a world of the ad-hoc “where casualness and improvisation shape the use and presence of buildings, and the life that occurs between them.” --David Winslow, 2016

This studio project was designed in response to Toronto’s 2019 by-law amendment which permitted the design and construction of laneway suites within the city’s downtown core. Unnamed Laneway frames the identity of urban laneway networks within future ways of living. This project falls within an experimental and speculative framework, bridging artistic narrative with laneway housing development to increase awareness of the movement’s powerful potential and to promote alleyway-culture’s connection with the future of Toronto’s new laneway housing developments.
In the age of condo-ism alternative efforts towards sustainable urban densification and affordable housing are more necessary than ever before.

Within Toronto’s urban core exists a challenge of promoting urban densification that counters the current polarization between our heritage neighbourhoods and new high-rise dwellings. Although laneway housing is not a complete solution, it offers a community-oriented approach within mature neighbourhoods that helps to maintain architectural diversity and promote a bottom-up heritage oriented development. Laneway housing combats the urban sprawl by encouraging infill housing and can help to fill the ‘missing-middle’ of housing accommodation in Toronto.









Pneu
design & fabrication
2017
Commissioned by DesignTO for thier 2017 Opening Night Launch Party.

Emily worked with a team of collaborators at Toronto Metropolitan University  to design and fabricate Pneu, an inflatable installation commissioned by DesignTO for their 2017 Opening Night Launch Party. This project was her first collaborative venture in inflatable design, and the informal beginnings of her current practice.

Pneu was developed through experimental form-finding and DIY fabrication methods that echo inflatable theory and ideals. Our naivete and novel appreciation for inflatable architecture motivated an creative approach that was completely self-taught.

Playing with iridescence and transparency, the contrasting polyethylene and mylar materiality creates a surreal spatial experience. Partygoers loop through a breathing threshold that is blanketed in variations of colour, light, and opacity. Pneu’s central focal point - a reflective mylar column - strategically conceals the fan powering the inflatable whilst cascading light throughout the space with the ebb and flow of air.

This project was run through Toronto Metropolitan University’s Design Fabrication Zone with the mentorship of Jonathan Anderson and Vincent Hui. Designed and fabricated by Emily Allan, Dominique Di Libero, Kelly Walcroft, Garbo Zhu, Gloria Zhou, Rutuja Atre



Belt Bench
design & fabrication
2017
Awarded 1 of 4 spots in in the DesignTO 2018 Student Design Exhibition at Dreschel Studio.

This bench marks Emily’s first forray in solid wood furniture design and construction as part of her undergraduate studies at Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Interior Design. Belt Bench is a prototype exploration in canvas web weaving and traditional dowel construction heavily inspired by danish modern classics. 

© emily allan 2022 
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