This piece speculates on an architectural future of collective ownership, maintenance, and use—first inspired by Invisible Cities and its description of the ‘inferno’. The essay interweaves a deepening housing and property crisis with academic literature and case studies to frame the narrative for this speculation.

This is a pocket book. Carry it with you while you walk, live, chat, and act. Walk with it, annotate it, remind yourself. It is not meant to collect dust on your bookshelf, but to spark hope for a future where societal rhetoric does not enforce a mindset designed only to benefit ourselves. This book seeks to ground you in a potential future of collective stewardship and ownership, and is an assemblage including fiction and manifesto-like guidelines. It is completed with combined theory and case studies that you can think of as working field notes.

Like this book, we are a species of assemblage: of our experiences, decisions, relationships, the food we eat, the words we speak—and every part of our being. Just as the pages blur together, so too does the clarity of our future. The joy of living comes in the excitement of what has not yet been lived, and in the hope that the best is yet to come.

This proposition of ownership is gradated, where different types and rights exist. Three manifesto rules are explored in conjunction with existing theory and architectural projects. These three can be viewed as core pillars for such a speculative future to manifest itself, and as core values that can already be glimpsed in the world around us.