There are two inhabited worlds in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Disposessed: Anarres and Urras. Anarres, as an anarchist society, emphasizes a very communal living mode to survive from their barren environment; while, Urras is resourceful and motivates competition. For our project, we delve into the everyday life of Anarres, and design a desert city that helps Anarres people live with their extreme climate.

In the novel, Le Guin didn’t speak extensively of architecture. We are interested in the "Holum tree" — a tree that provides basic supplies like clothes and window frames in Anarres life—and thinking about what type of architecture it could make. We imagine the Holum Tree is a flexible material. Branches are woven for a double-layer filter; the trunk is easily bent for basic structure. We also create a typology of light-weight structures. Minimal surface and bending active structures are activated for collective desert living. Anarres emphasizes sharing and non-hierarchy. The grid city system implies these two concepts. Each grid is 50x50 meter. A railway runs through the city. Institutions are located based on their relevance to transportation. Our diegetic prototype architecture and urban design emerges based on the "Holum tree" and Anarres’ collective living.