Blueprint for a hack: Leveraging informal building practices

This publication aims to reimagine community spaces. Faced with extreme housing shortages, physical isolation, and a challenging climate, outdoor public spaces in northern communities remain largely undesigned and underused. These ‘in-between’ spaces are strewn with stuff. Most housing and civic buildings in the communities emerge from and stand like physical markers of Euro-Canadian values. The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada has begun a discourse on design in northern Canadian communities, but discussions continue to dwell on housing and civic buildings. A strong need exists to open conversations about design and the public realm in northern villages, which this project tries to address, creating a unique experience in which northern and southern groups could apply a “hacking mindset” to reimagine community spaces.

Susane Havelka, Vikram Bhatt, Dave Harlander

Forward by Mirko Zardini

Actar, 2020

23.8 X 16.5 cm, 160 pages