TAKE BACK THE CITY

Final M.Arch Thesis Project

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2023

Thesis Research

Eight months

Prof. Lukas Pauer

Chinatown, Toronto

Although transit seems to play a crucial role in the lives of most Torontonians, its development can lead to the displacement of the city’s most vulnerable people. As part of the new Ontario Line project by Metrolinx, a Crown Corporation, the proposed Queen-Spadina Subway Station in Toronto Chinatown is one of many places facing the looming threat of transit-induced gentrification. As a counter to the displacive forces at play, this thesis seeks to empower low-income people of Toronto Chinatown in their ability to negotiate with the actors responsible for or complicit in the disappearance of their homes and essential businesses.

The project’s aim is reflected in a proposal for a mixed-use high-rise building and an accompanying professional practice manual. The proposed building would include relevant community land trusts in the planning and design of a comprehensive development featuring affordable housing and third spaces on top of the new subway station. The accompanying manual would help the people of Chinatown become fluent in the language of the real estate-industrial complex by explaining, decoding, and translating the often inaccessible, obscure, and violent workings of gentrification. By mobilizing municipal policies, financial pro forma, business partnership models, architectural drawings, and marking campaigns to counter the logic of real estate for a social benefit, we can ensure an equitable housing future in Toronto.