A descent into the ravine is a step through a tear in urbanity. The terrain vague is a foil to the capitalist city; against a demand for order, specificity, and integration, it is disorienting, banal, erratic. Operating outside the constraints of dominant social structures, it harbours the unconscious of the city, not only an inevitable, but also a necessary rupture in the urban fabric. In this subterranean realm, the striated and measured plots of land are sporadically smoothed over by persistent nature, reclaiming its territory. These perceived voids invite projections of desire, both at a civic scale and on an individual level, that consequently shape the space. These are grounds of negotiation, a political realm often driven more by visceral impulses than economics. They aggravate tensions typically suppressed in the city, including those wrought by violence and melancholy. This is a portrait of the Don Valley in Toronto. Fragments of representation reveal the role of this space in the collective memory of the public. Beyond the infrastructure that binds them, the city and the valley are integrated through their opposition: one fuels the experience of the other.

Cities are concentrations of diverse populations that undergo continual transformation over time. This thesis deals with the question, how does the individual make place in a constantly changing environment? The entry point for this study was looking at neglected places in urban environments. I looked specifically at the Don River Valley in Toronto, Ontario and how it has developed as an open-ended and complex system. The site research is presented through a series of stories describing specific events or places in the Don Valley that have taken place over the past 200 years. This thesis offers a mongrel approach to design for a site within the Don Valley. “The Mongrel Approach” is an opportunistic way of building that is committed to survival and open as to how this can be achieved. The design proposes a series of intimate yet public infrastructural devices; a toilet, water fountain, shelter and bridge that are presented in a set of hand drawings as well as through an “Explanatory Tale.” A magpie narrates this short story, which is part true, part fiction and part wishful thinking. As the earth’s population becomes more urban than rural and increasingly mobile, contemporary cities are becoming home to a diverse range of individuals with complex and layered identities. The Mongrel Approach offers a way of building that can handle difference and contradiction and accommodate incongruous or inharmonious parts. It positions the designer as a conjurer or first mover. This thesis proposes Mongrel buildings that respond to change by transforming slowly and incrementally over time with the involvement of multiple authors; but at each moment, a register of time and human ritual.

Cities are concentrations of diverse populations that undergo continual transformation over time. This thesis deals with the question, how does the individual make place in a constantly changing environment? The entry point for this study was looking at neglected places in urban environments. I looked specifically at the Don River Valley in Toronto, Ontario and how it has developed as an open-ended and complex system. The site research is presented through a series of stories describing specific events or places in the Don Valley that have taken place over the past 200 years. This thesis offers a mongrel approach to design for a site within the Don Valley. “The Mongrel Approach” is an opportunistic way of building that is committed to survival and open as to how this can be achieved. The design proposes a series of intimate yet public infrastructural devices; a toilet, water fountain, shelter and bridge that are presented in a set of hand drawings as well as through an “Explanatory Tale.” A magpie narrates this short story, which is part true, part fiction and part wishful thinking. As the earth’s population becomes more urban than rural and increasingly mobile, contemporary cities are becoming home to a diverse range of individuals with complex and layered identities. The Mongrel Approach offers a way of building that can handle difference and contradiction and accommodate incongruous or inharmonious parts. It positions the designer as a conjurer or first mover. This thesis proposes Mongrel buildings that respond to change by transforming slowly and incrementally over time with the involvement of multiple authors; but at each moment, a register of time and human ritual.

A descent into the ravine is a step through a tear in urbanity. The terrain vague is a foil to the capitalist city; against a demand for order, specificity, and integration, it is disorienting, banal, erratic. Operating outside the constraints of dominant social structures, it harbours the unconscious of the city, not only an inevitable, but also a necessary rupture in the urban fabric. In this subterranean realm, the striated and measured plots of land are sporadically smoothed over by persistent nature, reclaiming its territory. These perceived voids invite projections of desire, both at a civic scale and on an individual level, that consequently shape the space. These are grounds of negotiation, a political realm often driven more by visceral impulses than economics. They aggravate tensions typically suppressed in the city, including those wrought by violence and melancholy. This is a portrait of the Don Valley in Toronto. Fragments of representation reveal the role of this space in the collective memory of the public. Beyond the infrastructure that binds them, the city and the valley are integrated through their opposition: one fuels the experience of the other.