On Bricks Bonds and Belonging: Material and Relational Theories of the Commons

Dive into the connections that build our communities, from the homes we live in to the bonds we share.

Reserve Your Spot

What does it mean to build the commons, literally and figuratively, within a housing system founded on principles of private property, financialization, and individual ownership?

This session brings together urban scholar Susannah Bunce and architect and housing researcher Karen Kubey for a focused conversation on how the commons operates across scales: from built form and design decisions to governance structures, land use policy, and everyday practices of care and collective life.

Moving beyond the commons as an abstract ideal, the discussion will explore:

• how collectivity is (or isn’t) embedded in housing design
• how planning, regulation, and property systems constrain or enable shared living
• how the commons is sustained through relationships, labour, and social infrastructure

This session will feature short presentations from each speaker, followed by a moderated dialogue and audience Q&A.

Susannah Bunce – Dept of Geography & Planning U of T

Dr. Susannah Bunce’s research centres on the geographies and planning of urban communities and neighbourhoods and sustainable community building. She engages with critical theories of urban commons and alternities, gentrification, environmental justice, urban political ecology, and more-than-human geographies to examine localized issues and politics of land use and community-based socio-environmental identifications with local spaces. She is also interested in contestations caused by gentrification and other housing/land-based struggles. Her research also focuses on insurgent responses and more hopeful, future-oriented community-engaged practices, particularly those related to affordable and equitable land stewardship such as urban community land trusts and urban eco-villages.

Karen Kubey – Daniels Faculty of Architecture U of T

Karen Kubey is a New York- and Toronto-based urbanist specializing in housing design and spatial justice. She is the editor of Housing as Intervention: Architecture towards Social Equity (Architectural Design, 2018) and served as the first executive director of the Institute for Public Architecture. Kubey co-founded the New York chapter of Architecture for Humanity (now Open Architecture/New York) and co-founded and led the New Housing New York design competition. Her work brings together architects, policy and finance experts, and community leaders to develop projects that contribute to more equitable housing and neighborhoods.