Ethan Lamping (EL) in Conversation with Jack Self (JS)

EL: The tertiary objective of your Derivative Architecture project was a quiet rupture of capitalism and inherited traditions of domesticity, a Trojan horse strategy, wherein by designing and working within the financial mechanisms of real estate you hoped to simultaneously create cheap housing and new modes of social organization. Where does this project stand?

JS: I decided, when I was 24, to engage in a 10-year project to find out who I was, what I was good at, and how I could use my talents to benefit others. Almost immediately, I concluded I should focus on housing and the home, because they are twin foundations of capitalism. Housing, as an asset, is tied to property and ownership. For years, I thought this sphere could be disrupted as others were in the 2010s. That was a profound mistake. Property relations and ownership are the load-bearing pillar of capitalism. They are not open to disruption.

Architects often design imaginary financial structures or ownership systems, which are almost always impossible. I may sound naive for thinking I could spend 10 years on this, but I did. The home is where normality is constructed. Traditional domestic arrangements are inventions less than a hundred years old, now absurdly embedded in capitalism.
The project drew me into exciting fields like climate adaptation, and financial design, or the design of communities and governance rules. I worked with developers, communities, institutions, and independently. Ultimately, it was a total crash out. I could not achieve my goal. I effectively exited architecture and spent a couple of years determining what to do next. Now I pursue the same objectives by different means.

EL: What specific struggles did you encounter?

JS: After the Occupy movement in 2013, I became highly radicalized toward wealth inequality and housing shortages. Almost no architects addressed these issues then. I proposed projects designing financial products to generate housing, reengineering the mechanisms developers use. FORM FOLLOWS FINANCE™. I was nearly removed from school because this was not considered architecture. There were no design precedents. In some ways, the radical nature of my early work has been absorbed as the discipline moves in this direction. That is a triumph. But the reason it failed is structural.

I tried hypothetical projects, minimum viable products, partnerships with banks, developers, institutions. I sought ways to realize these projects. I could not, and I suspect it is not possible. Housing under capitalism functions through what I call the ownership loop. The modern mortgage depends on rising home values. If a home sells below debt value, the owner is ruined. Homeowners are motivated to see house values rise. In democracies, they vote for politicians promising this. Politicians restrict supply. Banks provide expensive development debt and long-term mortgages. Developers build quickly and sell. This produces a constant cycle.

Intervening is challenging. Collective ownership encounters legal and financial barriers. Mortgages are structured around one family, one house. Collective mortgages are extremely difficult. Structural barriers have enormous vested interests. If housing fell to zero value, the capitalist system would collapse. Every financial crash in modern economics has been caused by housing.

In London, there was support for land or planning adjustments but no ability to change finance terms. Development finance is expensive. Unconventional projects are high risk. No rational lender would fund them. In Paris, land is forcibly acquired, finance subsidized, rents controlled. To make post-capitalism possible, one must profoundly break the rules of capitalism. I once believed one could work against the system from within. Now I believe one must confront it directly.
Demographics may alter the ownership loop: declining populations, many priced out of ownership, significant corrections in housing value. Post-capitalism may arrive as a demographic reality. In that sense, I may have been decades too early.

EL: What is the value of architecture? Many students question the field and its purpose.

JS: I studied macroeconomics and philosophy alongside architecture because I was concerned it did not offer the possibilities I expected. Architects face instability, exploitation, and diminishing opportunity. It is unsurprising that students question the field. My defense of architecture: it is the most sophisticated design discipline. To make a house, one must understand policy, finance, structural and environmental engineering, material properties, budgeting, project management, aesthetics, sociology, anthropology. It is a self-learning methodology. Architects constantly educate themselves about domains they do not fully understand and incorporate them into practice. That is powerful.

The challenge of our time is to reimagine normality. Civilization lacks a clear purpose. Capitalism emerged because enough people imagined an alternative to feudalism. Architecture’s value lies in its power of imagination and capacity to design alternatives coherently. Ideas spread through narrative. By articulating values, one attracts others with similar concerns. When I began, the audience was small. Over time, many arrived independently at similar conclusions. Community forms through shared imagination.

After 10 years, my only built project was 95 cubic feet of renewable energy infrastructure. It was a disappointment. I was approached to start a technology company. I dislike technology, but that is precisely why I joined it. One runs toward the fire. My current work focuses on enhancing the public sphere and resisting algorithmic exploitation and surveillance capitalism. The ideological position and methodology developed in architecture can be applied broadly. Even if one does not practice architecture conventionally, I stand by it as an education. It is a powerful tool for shaping the world and shaping oneself.