British architect Will Alsop is known for his modernist style. (Ryerson University)

Will Alsop, the bad-boy British architect who announced in August that he was giving up architecture, will take up teaching at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Ryerson announced Wednesday that Alsop has been named distinguished visiting practitioner in architecture.

Alsop will deliver his first lecture at Ryerson on Nov. 24 and will make three or four visits during the winter term, mainly to work with graduate students on their thesis projects.

Alsop is known for his modernist approach and unusually shaped buildings, including North Greenwich Tube station and the Peckham Library in the U.K.

His Sharp Centre, designed for the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, looks like a black-and-white toy box balanced on pencils, painted in bright colours. It has taken years for the unusual building to be accepted in the city.

Alsop, one of Britain's best-known architects, lists several other projects in Toronto, including the Alsop Toronto Sales Centre, a condo sales centre peppered with multi-coloured holes and the Westside Lofts.

Alsop characterized his departure from architecture as a "serious inquiry into painting," saying he wanted to paint at least two days a week.

He plans to mount an exhibition of his work at Ryerson some time in 2010.

Alsop has previously taught sculpture at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and architecture at University of London, the Vienna University of Technology and the University of Hannover.