The Home is a Place for Living: Fifteen Conversations about Inhabitation, Adaptation, and the Renewal of Toronto’s Post-War Apartment Buildings

Through ethnographic interviews with residents, conversations with key community advocates, and typological site analysis, this research presents a methodology for the tenant-focused revitalization of Toronto’s post-war towers. In environments where the scale of the architecture often overwhelms ideas of individual desire and agency, this research explores how to mediate the dissonance between hyper-density and the realities of domestic life. Through the renegotiation of previously overlooked thresholds — balconies, corridors, and empty parking lots — the project examines how these liminal spaces can serve as a tool for user appropriation and activation.