Living on an Ownless Land

All Shall Be Well tells the story of a lesbian couple in Hong Kong. When Pat passes away, her partner Angie finds herself without any rights regarding the funeral arrangements or the apartment they had shared for over 30 years. Since homosexual marriage is not recognized and in the absence of a will, Hong Kong’s Inheritance Ordinance (Cap. 73) automatically transfers property to Pat’s biological family, in this case, her brother.

Co- ming from a working-class background and facing the housing crisis, he lives with his wife and adult son in a cramped 15m2 apartment. Meanwhile, Angie, despite having spent a lifetime with Pat, is forced to leave their 60m2 apartment to make way for the family who now legally owns it.

This film explores the housing crisis and density issues in Hong Kong while examining individuals’ deep attachment to their living spaces, belongings, and memories, raising questions about housing rights beyond mere legal ownership and the rights of occupancy and transfer, exposing the ways in which systems of ownership shape the spatial distribution of space.

The project aims to explore the notions of housing as property and its spatial, political, and social implications.

The park house at Sihlquai 41, will be repurposed as housing infrastructure to examine how ownership shapes urban form and social relations.

The production of space is never neutral —property remains a key instrument of economic power, embedded in policies that divide and regulate land, assign value, and determine access. Zoning laws, financial speculation, and privatization fragmentize the city, reinforcing spatial injustices that discriminate lower class, women, immigrants, queer people and others with non-conforming kinship that is not recognized by the law.

In Switzerland, where property systems have historically restricted women’s access to ownership, full legal capacity within marriage was only granted in 1988, enabling women to acquire assets independently and still fail to account for diverse family structures, perpetuating injustices in housing rights.

Housing are not mere objects but the result of cultural, social, economic, and political forces, housing should be infrastructural accessible for everyone. This project radically imagines housing architecture after property ownership has been abolished, exploring how space could function outside market-driven logic.

It envisions a city shaped by fluid interactions rather than rigid legal contracts, where property no longer limits alter- native ways of inhabiting and imagining urban space. It aims to disrupt value systems and redirect flows of power and capital, opening spaces for imagination, reflection, and action. What would it mean if the space we inhabit belongs to no one while belonging to everyone?

Project by: Maena Asticher

Teaching team: Anna Puigjaner, Dafni Retzepi, Ethel Baraona Pohl, Pol Esteve Castelló, Lisa Maillard, He Shen, He Yufei. In collaboration with BUK

Master Thesis: Spring 2025