Frederik Kaufmann

 „To develop a mode of living together, a mode of being together that cannot be shared as a model, but as an instance“

- Harney & Moten in The Undercommons 

The bücherraum f is a merging of a left-wing political and a women-lesbian library, tucked away behind a groundfloor cornerspace of a random apartment building in central Oerlikon. Both spatially and conceptually, the bücherraum hesitates between wanting to open up and close itself off: between the exposure that allows for a public to step in and the camouflage that provides safe space for its often stigmatised communities. This ambivalence forms the starting point of this master thesis’ proposal for the MFO-site. A narrow back-alley leading to the heart of the site forms the backbone of a series of spatial interventions that ‘queer’ the logic of the surrounding buildings through careful additions and alterations of spaces, programmes and circulation routes. Their status remains ambivalent: rather than proposing permanent solutions they put forward an attitude to steal away spaces for ‘othered’ collectivities and fluid uses through the tacit use of back doors and service spaces.