Architecture
"At Home with the Collective: A Report from the Future of Housing," edited by Alexander Eisenschmidt
The housing shortage is a global problem that cannot be resolved through market-driven models of home ownership. At Home with the Collective: A Report from the Future of Housing, edited by Professor Alexander Eisenschmidt and published by Birkhäuser in 2026, therefore postulates a radical shift from house to housing and from the individual to the collective. The reintroduction of the term “collective” is understood as a mechanism for refocusing housing as a community-building, solidarity-building, and city-building activity.
The book grew out of a housing summit of the same name that Eisenschmidt curated and organized at the school in 2023. Organized in four chapters, At Home with the Collective examines alternative urban housing typologies, models of communal construction, and historical precedents that can inform present-day housing struggles. Essays and projects draw on examples from five continents, situating the housing crisis within a broad international context.
Alongside an introduction by Eisenschmidt, the volume includes contributions by Golnar Abbasi, Michael Asgaard Andersen, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Verena von Beckerath, Neeraj Bhatia, Arno Brandlhuber, Labbih El Moumni, Valeria Esteves, Lacol, Yan Meng, Chris Moyer, Michael Pfister, Hilary Sample, Ivonne Santoyo-Orozco, Susanne Schindler, Dan Spiegel, Martino Tattara, and Usina CTAH.
The publication was developed with support from the University of Illinois Chicago and the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation and published by Birkhäuser, with graphic design by Studio Eberlein.