Designing Real Interests: A Framework for Collective Property Practices

Real property, and its systems of landholding and land division, is virtually everywhere. As a fundamental infrastructure to territories and cities, property shapes, in great part, social relations, development, and spatial transformation. As designers always work in the context of a property system, it is important to have frameworks that allow them to interpret and understand how property operates, systemically and in the context of any given site. Furthermore, if they are to intervene in such systems, design methodologies are also needed. This project aims to provide such tools, emphasizing how social and environmental interdependence can facilitate the practice of property beyond the status quo. The terms “property” and “ownership” are often used interchangeably. The latter is less flexible, however, because, with “ownership,” there is little agency for anyone but the owner. This project builds on a concept that recognizes a wider set of stakeholders, and may give designers leverage: the interest. Interests include all the relations, stakes, obligations, and rights that an entity may have in land. Interests account for the many ways in which actors are involved in property, whether they own or don’t. The advantage of interpreting property through interests is that they capture varying degrees of interdependence, access, and ways of conceiving property boundaries. Through five scenarios, this project outlines a design approach working with property’s spatial and relational dimensions. Each scenario explores how property lines can interact with various kinds of interests, terms of collective use, land policy, and ecological and social relations. In this framework, designers may gain agency in tapping into the power that property mediates and tackling environmental change, housing affordability, and spatial segregation.