Lateral Office

Lateral Office, founded in Toronto in 2003 by Mason White and Lola Sheppard, is an experimental design practice that operates at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and urbanism. The studio describes its practice as a commitment to “design as a research vehicle to pose and respond to complex, urgent questions in the built environment,”  engaging in the “wider context and climate of a project– be that social, ecological, or political.” Projects include Water Economies/Ecologies, Farming the Salton, CA; Next North: Caribou Research Station, Nunavut; the installations, “The Active Layer” in Chicago and “Clearing” in Toronto; Icelink, Bering Strait Competition; and From Runways to Greenways, a masterplan for Reykjavik. They are the recipients of the Professional Prix de Rome from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Lefevre Emerging Practitioner Fellowship from Ohio State University.  In 2005, they were selected to participate in the League’s Young Architects Forum (now known as the Architectural League Prize).  They are co-authors of Pamphlet Architecture #30: Coupling.

Lola Sheppard received her Bachelor of Science in Architecture and Bachelor of Architecture from McGill University and a Master of Architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.  She currently is an Assistant Professor at the University of Waterloo.  Mason White received his Bachelor of Architecture from Virginia Tech and his Master of Architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.  He is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, & Design at the University of Toronto and a Senior Editor at Archinect.  Sheppard and White are both Directors of InfraNet Lab, a research lab on logistics infrastructures and spatial networks.