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The MUCS StoryIn January 2003, a dedicated group of McGill students came together with the goal of creating an environmentally and socially sustainable urban residence for McGill students and Montreal citizens. The result was the formation of the McGill Urban Community Sustainment Project (MUCS), a student organization founded on principles of green design, cooperative living, and education for sustainable livelihoods. In March 2003 several students involved in the MUCS Project began to discuss the possibility of living and learning through many of the MUCS principles by establishing a small-scale co-operative home in Montreal. Two months later the Co-op sur Généreux was founded in two residential loft spaces on the corner of Mont Royal and Papineau and quickly grew into a diverse and dynamic co-operative community of 15 people. Many of the lessons learned at the Co-op sur Généreux, such as natural building techniques or approaches to group facilitation and decision-making, have been directly applied to the visioning, design, and realization of the MUCS Project. As interest in the MUCS Project grew, members recognized the need to begin to create a holistic body of knowledge addressing aspects of the MUCS Vision. Through various outreach activities, MUCS members sought out faculty interested in the aims of the project and courses with content amenable to the focus of sustainable urban design. The result of this outreach was the first MUCS Integrated Sustainable Design Process involving eight academic courses offered at McGill and Concordia for the 2003-2004 academic year in the fields of urban planning, architecture, environmental studies, social work and engineering. In the fall of 2004 MUCS reached out to build its first true partnerships with residents and community organizations in the Notre-Dame-de-Grace (NDG) neighbourhood of Montreal. At the same time the MUCS vision grew beyond housing to include a community centre and co-operative businesses, all united in one mixed-use urban environment. By the time the Montreal Urban Community Sustainment (MUCS) Project was incorporated as a non-profit in the spring of 2005, the project encompassed: students and faculty from many universities; NDG residents and community organizations; planners, architects, and engineers; community organizers and anti-oppression educators; and members of Montreal consumer co-ops, housing co-ops, and worker co-ops. In the fall of 2005, the second MUCS Integrated Sustainable Design Process was launched in partnership with the Canada Green Building Council and the NDG Community Council. Charrettes and other design exercises brought together hundreds of community members, design professionals, and faculty and students to collaborate on the design of sustainable community housing and community facilities in NDG. In October 2006 the MUCS Project moved to NDG and established a multi-tenant office and organizing space called the Northcliffe Square. Day-to-day sharing with four other community groups has quickly transformed the Northcliffe Square and the MUCS Project into a hub of social activities from potlucks to film screenings, to community canning workshops. |
Current Working Groups
Design and Development
Designing a community centre, a network of collective businesses, and a co-operative and affordable home for hundreds of people is a tremendous challenge. The MUCS Project approaches the scale and complexity of this challenge through an integrated sustainable design process founded on community participation, applied and experiential academic learning, and the guidance of professionals from many disciplines and perspectives.
The MUCS Design Process is all about learning. Learning from the hopes and needs of Montreal students and residents. Learning from the stories of existing co-operative communities around the world. Learning from experiences and experiments in our own lives like at the Co-op sur Genereux. Learning from community organizers, natural builders, anti-oppression educators, green architects, and co-op developers.
The MUCS Design Process can take different forms. Sometimes being a conversation in an NDG park or a brainstorming session over dinner at the Co-op sur Genereux, but also sometimes formal such as an interview with a resident from Ganas or a class assignment in the Integrated Sustainable Design Process.
All of the learning that happens through the MUCS Design Process is carefully documented and organized. Some of this learning is presented in the following Design Aspects sections which break the MUCS vision into three different design areas.
The Dining Co-op
The MUCS Dining Co-op is a growing group of people interested in co-creating an engaging community space in NDG where people can come together to cook and share meals as well as benefit from group food buying. Here are the basic ideas:
Buying food together is cheaper: buying food in bulk allows dining co-op members to get a broader variety of better quality foods for less money, with less packaging and less hassle.
Cooking food together is more efficient: preparing food in teams allows the members of the dining co-op to concentrate on cooking food only once per week while meeting new people learning new skills.
Eating food together is more fun: members of the dining co-op get to enjoy shared community dinners, prepared lunches, and healthy, fresh breakfast ingredients. Members can choose a meal plan that best suits their life style.
Who can join the dining co-op? The dining co-op is open to anybody - individuals, families, couples, elders, singles, students – everybody is welcome. However members must be able to work comfortably in a group setting.
Zero Food Waste Project
The MUCS Zero Food Waste Network rescues surplus foods from local businesses and redistributes that food to local food security organizations.
The Zero Food Waste Network is dedicated to:
Food Security: redistributing thousands of kilograms of free, nutritional food every week to local food security organizations helps food banks and collective kitchens save money and increase the variety and quality of food they provide to their members.
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