Simon Rabyniuk

TO Housing Works is a forthcoming exhibition at U of T's Design and Architecture Gallery at 1 Spadina. It explores the transformation of detached residential neighbourhoods within Greater Toronto Area. This animation, one of a larger series, explores alternative ways people inhabit suburban homes. Each animation highlights different housing pathways and stories. This exert shows the transformation of Scarborough's South Ceaderbrae neighbourhood between 1954 and 2020 using redrawn aerial photography. While the post-war suburb mobilized one idea about technology, economy, access, and equity (e.g. CMHC acting as a lender of last resort) using repeatable and standardized techniques—seventy years later, it now surely participates in, rather than relieves, the situations creating Toronto's housing crisis. Revisiting the design of the post-war neighbourhood's protocols, infrastructures, and enabling technologies presents an opportunity to formalize types of alternative housing occupation already occurring and to articulate new ideas about housing access, and equity.