Cai, Jason2025-04-222025-04-222025-04-222025-04-07https://hdl.handle.net/10012/21617As a professional practice and educational framework, architecture has been intertwined with nuanced capitalist systems prioritizing rigid hierarchies, production, and commodification over social agency and spatial adaptability. This thesis critically examines how pedagogy and practice can reinforce these instances of institutionalized capitalism, leading to the marginalization of people and their spaces. However, rather than viewing the margins as sites of exclusion, this study aims to reframe them as spaces of resistance, adaptability, and evolution. The research identifies three areas of interest based on Henri Lefebvre’s concepts of spatial production: the social, the physical, and the mental. And in doing so, it intends to do the following. The Social: Deconstruct institutionalized frameworks and reveal ways in which networks of actors continuously shape the built environment. The Physical: Examine the influence of static perceptions of architecture and its effect on the comprehension of space, built forms, and the processes of production. The Mental: Identify psychological perceptions of space, tendencies of control on spatial negotiations, and generational influence. These categories will explore alternative modes of architectural thought and practice that inherently challenge capitalist institutionalization by disrupting established norms and standards: Actor-Network Theory (ANT), Architectural Appropriation, and Tactical Urbanism serve as key approaches for navigating the margins, providing methods to engage with space within and beyond institutional boundaries. The University of Waterloo School of Architecture will act as a site of study, both spatially and socially, as it embodies an institution's structure while simultaneously attempting to resist its constraints. By applying these alternative theories, this thesis will promote a shift in institutionalized practices, enabling students to navigate and engage as both agents within the margins and participants within institutional frameworks. Furthermore, it underscores the potential and possibilities of operating within and across these spaces. In doing so, students can critically engage with and gain agency over their academic spaces while understanding its influence on community resilience. By mapping informal networks, understanding transient space, and experimenting with speculative interventions, a greater understanding of functional responses to institutionalized constraints can be established. By prioritizing process over production, collaboration over hierarchy, and agency over prescription, these explorations argue that working within the margins, rather than assimilating into dominant systems, lends itself to a critical reorientation of one's existence within architectural pedagogy and practice. Furthermore, it grounds the architect's role as an active participant in spatial negotiation rather than a passive agent of capitalist production. Rather than attempting to dismantle capitalism, this work examines how it subtly shapes architectural theory and practice. It repositions the architect beyond institutional constraints, emphasizing agency in education and space while fostering a deeper understanding of networks and communities. By exploring alternative approaches to learning, occupying, and designing, it seeks ways to navigate and challenge capitalist structures without being confined by them. By viewing the margins as spaces of potential rather than exclusion, this thesis reimagines architectural education and practice as systems of informality, improvisation, and adaptability.enTECHNOLOGY::Civil engineering and architecture::Architecture and architectural conservation and restoration::ArchitecturecommunitycapitalisminstitutionalizationpedagogyActor-Network TheoryMaster Thesis