INTERSTICITY: A speculative re-mapping of Toronto’s laneways

Toronto is home to twenty-five hundred laneway passages that form a network of fragmented spaces, making up a large portion of the city's circulation infrastructure. While primary roadways are likened to arteries, laneways are considered capillaries; unconscious passages that perform a supporting function within the city. With such a dense population of laneway conditions interspersed throughout Toronto it is apparent that they expose an equally fascinating ontological condition in their urban typology. With recent attention directed towards revitalizing laneway environments in Toronto, it becomes necessary to explore their present conditions and qualities in order to speculate on their stance in the future. InterstiCity proposes Toronto's laneways as a third city; an entity independent from but bound between public spaces and private limits. This thesis re-maps Toronto's interstitial spaces, establishing a critique of current revitalization strategies, while simultaneously revealing the rich identity of Toronto hidden in the history of its laneways.