Cody ck592@cam.ac.uk

Cody Knight ‘This Place was Empty, Now it’s our Stage!’

Fundamental principles of peaceful protest include: physical occupation, passive resistance, artistic improvisation, and of course, parties — Gideon Mendel.

The new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 increases police powers, and criminalizes certain forms of protest in almost all public or infrastructural spaces; but, crucially, neglects to legislate against spaces not used for these purposes, I.E. vacant spaces. This loophole offers the opportunity for protest without penalty.

If we assume the premise that protest is harder to discredit and dismiss if it occurs legally, how might architects facilitate political resistance by adapting disused buildings?

By constructing what at first appears to be a legitimate structure from around such a vacant building with scaffold, this project creates a space of occupation and community. Hiding in plain sight until impossible to ignore, the structure’s true purpose can then be quickly revealed, drawing open the curtains to a performance, amplifying the impact as an act of revelation.

Near the Grafton Centre, around Cambridge, and across the U.K., similar vacant buildings can be found, highlighting the potential for a reproducible methodology and platform of resistance.