PERFORMATIVE HOUSING: TORONTO’S REGENT PARK
Published for Places Journal, New York (2021)

When Don Bach was interviewed about his newly acquired residence at 60 Richmond East in Regent Park, Toronto, he expressed unmitigated enthusiasm: “I love this place! it came along at just the right time for me!” he told the Toronto Star, pumping his fists with excitement. As Bach described, he’d spent many years moving from one apartment to the other. Now he had a stable new home, and a new job too, as a maintenance supervisor at a nearby Holiday Inn.

Among the first residents of 60 Richmond East, Bach was in many ways the development’s poster child. The cooperative housing was part of the city’s effort to rehouse some of the low-socioeconomic communities who had been displaced by the Regent Park Revitalization Project. Built in 2011 and hailed in the architectural press, as well as in local news and media outlets, the celebrated design promotes collective living, low-cost maintenance, and sustainable development. The eleven-story structure features a resident-run kitchen, a community garden, rainwater irrigation, and an organic composting facility. Its “urban permaculture” earned the building LEED Gold certification, along with ten awards from architectural organizations, as well as the City of Toronto.