nathan shakura

Collective Dwelling & Appropriation for Autonomy

I am investigating the unoccupied space in the BMO tower, 100 King St. west and speculating what possibilities might exist there for collective dwelling and robust community outside of the confines of capitalist conceptions of property and state sanctioned development.The central goal of autonomous housing outside of state and capitalist property conceptions is rooted in the idea that housing is a fundamental right of human beings, and that the commodification of housing under capitalism has led to the use-value of housing to be superceded by it’s exchange value as real-estate (Madden & Marcuse).The practice of squatting (the illegal occupation of a building) has set a precedent as a viable option for much needed housing and community space, and is a mode of reclaiming the use-value over exchange value. In my research, I examined the processes of European squatting that have taken place in London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, in the mid to late 20th century, as well examples of informal housing in Caracas (McGuirk, Vasudevan). From this I have gathered that the act of squatting is simultaneously an act of rebellion and revolutionary activism as well as a means to procure humane housing and collective space. This project will utilize squatting as a medium to gain access to the tower and appropriate un-used office space with the eventual goal of permanent dwelling space and communal living. In The Right To the City, Henri Lefebvre posits the idea of an “Urban Strategy” for reclaiming the city for the working class. This concept means that the “inhabitant” of the city is a political subject of urban revolution. In terms of the scope of this project, the inhabitant of the city translates to the collective of working-class individuals that will endeavour on the path towards housing autonomy within the framework of squatting. This project will follow the idea of a collective made up of an energetic core of creative young workers, having become discontent with capitalism and individualistic social organization seek to create an urban strategy of their own.Through a targeted program of appropriating unoccupied private property, collective ownership, and dweller control of the building process and subsequent structures produced, the collective can help an urban residential typology to emerge to reclaim housing, economic, and social autonomy for working-class and un-housed people in so-called Toronto, Canada.***PLEASE VIEW SIEGE TOOLS AS WELLMadden, David J., and Peter Marcuse. “Introduction: The Residential Is Political.” In Defense of Housing: The Politics of Crisis, Verso, 2016, pp. 9–12.McGuirk, Justin. “Caracas: The City Is Frozen Politics.” Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture, Verso, 2014, pp. 105–107.Vasudevan, Alexander. The Autonomous City: A History of Urban Squatting, Verso, New York, 2017.Lefebvre, Henri. “The Right to the City.” Writings on Cities, edited by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas, Blackwell, 1996, pp. 65-155.