On Nov. 24, Western Law and Waterloo Architecture students presented nine designs for a hypothetical new law building at Western.
The showcase held in the John & Dotsa Bitove Family Law Library was the culmination of a course jointly run by Western University’s Faculty of Law and the University of Waterloo School of Architecture. Students from both universities took part in the course, Law 5863A: Special Topics (Law and Architecture), which had students collaborate in groups to design their dream version of a Western Law school.
Law and architecture event held at The John & Dotsa Bitove Family Law Library, Nov. 24, 2025.
Law professor David Sandomierski teamed up with John McMinn, an architecture professor at Waterloo, to develop and run the course.
“The course brings together law students from Western and architecture students from the University of Waterloo to learn about the relationship between space and law. We’ve been doing some interpretation of legal spaces and trying to understand what legal spaces communicate about law,” said Sandomierski.
The location of classes alternated weekly between London and Waterloo’s Cambridge Architecture campus, with transport being provided to students in the course.
Students participating in the course also had the opportunity to visit and examine the architecture of courthouses and law schools throughout the province.
Third-year Western Law student Mary Fizell and Waterloo architecture student Helena Mühlböck worked together to create one of the designs.
“What I noticed about here is there’s no light, there’s a bunch of offices who don’t have any light, indirect or direct line, and the ceilings are low, unreasonably low,” said Mühlböck, describing her observations of the current law building.
Fizell added that their group “looked at designs to open things up, create more collaborative spaces and be able to expand the size of the law school to accommodate the needs of a growing student body.”
McMinn shared that part of the inspiration for the assignment came from Western holding preliminary talks of building a new home for its law program.
“There are two sites, the Springett parking lot across from the existing law school, and another one is between the Ivey School of Business and [the former] Brescia college. Students have been looking at two sites and exploring designs for an expanded program for the law school,” said McMinn.
Western said there are no current plans to renovate the Josephine Spencer Niblett Law Building or build a new law building.
Western’s Chief Librarian and Vice-Provost Geoffrey Little and law dean Mohamed Khimji both gave speeches before the groups presented their designs.
“This project is one of the most inspiring examples we’ve had this year of what happens when disciplines meet each other with curiosity and imagination,” said Khimji.
The course was made possible by the funding Sandomierski received as a Centre for Teaching and Learning fellow. This year, Sandomierski looked into interdisciplinary co-teaching, which inspired the format of the class.
“I really hope that this course can be an example for bringing in other disciplines to the law school,” said Sandomierski.
While the course is not confirmed to continue next year, Sandomierski hopes this class could inspire other interdisciplinary course offerings in the future.
Update: (December 12, 6 p.m.) This article has been updated to include additional information from Western University.
