long lot

interim occupation

HauseHalten is an association in Leipzig which was created as a response to the city's nearly 1000 vacant sites. The project establishes new occupants in vacant buildings by transferring temporary ownership from the original occupants. The original occupant is then relieved of the maintenance costs of the building which fall upon the responsibility of the new occupant. The city also awards the new occupant with 15 euros per square meter with which to repair and build their own additions to the vacant space. Such spaces are desirable for sectors of soceity seeking alternative lifestyles which they cannot satisfy within the traditional market.
http://www.haushalten.org/de/english_summary.asp

vacancy

The phenomenon of vacancy and abandonment are commonplace in the neighborhood of Point Douglas, which is overcome by a downward spiral. The community is so plighted by crime, violence and decay most of, if not all, its potential is negated.

participation

Lucien Kroll's la MéMé student residences is a project that involved the future inhabitants in the design and construction. The structural grid is such that columns are seemingly random allowing units to vary in size and configuaration via movable partitions. The facade is also composed of a grid and fitted with various demountable windows and panels of differing dimensions. The residents then worked with Kroll's team to select the pieces that would in the end make up their unit, allowing units to reflect the desires of the dweller and to anticipate changes from future dwellers.

infiltrate

Perhaps not entirely related to what I am researching, but still an interesting website that documents people across the country and internationally who explore abandoned and off-limit sites, like mental hospitals, underground tunnels, rooftops, etc. Certainly there is a counter culture of people who value and are drawn to the abandoned spaces tucked deep within our cities.
http://www.infiltration.org/abandoned-whitby.html

'Manufactured Sites' is a project by Teddy Cruz, where he obtains homes from San Diago slated for demolition and transports them to Tijuana, Mexico, where they are set within a framework of scaffolding. Cruz's project behaves as a layer of infrastructure where residents are enabled, within a permanent structure, to scavenge, buy, and assemble makeshift houses or to purchase these appropriated homes from across the border.
http://www.informalism.net/2008/11/estudio-teddy-cruz-manufactured-sites.html

urban gleaning

'The Gleaners and I' is a documentary by Agnes Varda which explores a cultural phenomenon in France of gleaneurs, which historically were the poor and indigent who collected food that was left behind after harvest. Gleaning remains as a source of livelihood or pleasure within the realms of the law. The practice of squatting is in some sense the urban equivalent of gleaning, and denotes the fleeting nature of space within modern cities. Cities become porous with abandoned and disused buildings, which is certainly the case in the downtown, exchange, and point douglas discticts in Winnipeg.