The ComLuxe Design Project explores the concept of Common Luxury, defined as a dynamic paradigm where high-quality experiences and resources are collectively valued and shared, moving away from individual ownership. It envisions achieving a form of post-scarcity by leveraging technology, integrating ethical and sustainable practices, and prioritizing experiential fulfillment and socio-cultural worth over material accumulation. The project seeks to redefine value beyond monetary metrics to encompass collective creation and positive impact, aiming for a more democratic and sustainable access to luxury.

The project includes two main parts. Part 1, the ComLuxe Index, is a speculative product catalog archiving fictional entities, designs, services, and policies that embody the Common Luxe philosophy. It acts as a conceptual space using speculative thought to challenge existing realities and explore alternative forms of value and collective well-being. This part aims to "remake the world" and explore "the possibility that they might always be otherwise".

Part 2, "Soften City," is a tangible manifestation of these ideas, presented as a collection of urban interventions using discursive design. Discursive design employs artifacts as "goods for thinking" to make ideas tangible and provoke reflection. Examples include a public pillow designed to promote "living life horizontally" and alternative public resting, and a bus stop post hammock embodying "The Charter of Dignified Waiting & The Right to Stillness" Policy Proposal. These artifacts challenge traditional urban design that often prioritizes efficiency over comfort and stillness in public spaces.

Essentially, the project uses speculative and discursive design to critique existing urban conditions, propose alternative scenarios prioritizing collective well-being and shared value, and use tangible artifacts to communicate these ideas and stimulate public conversation. It fundamentally questions whether luxury can be truly common and challenges the value of traditional luxury.

Can luxury be truly common—accessible and beneficial to all—or is it a privilege that perpetuates exclusion?

Part 1

ComLuxe Index

Archiving the future of common luxury

A speculative product catalog/index of common luxury. It archives fictional entities, designs, services, policies..etc different formats that embody the ComLuxe philosophy. It introduces a conceptual space for exploring alternative forms of value and collective well-being, framed here as "Common Luxe". Rather than defining itself against existing market categories, this exploration draws upon philosophical ideas concerning speculation, materialism, and the nature of shared or 'generic' existence. The project posits Common Luxe as an arena for speculative thought, akin to the concerns of speculative realism or the explorations found within the Black Speculative Arts Movement, which utilize speculation to envision and critique realities beyond the immediately apparent.

At its core, Common Luxe can be understood as an attempt to "remake the world" or to "construct new histories". This involves challenging what might be termed "inductive stagnation", where existing conditions or categories are mistakenly assumed to represent the full scope of possibility. It seeks to move beyond simply describing "the way things are" towards exploring "the possibility that they might always be otherwise".

Ideas drawn from discussions on materialism are central to this perspective. Unlike idealist approaches that prioritize thought over being, a materialist stance emphasizes the primacy of the real over its knowledge. Furthermore, the concept of the "generic" is particularly relevant. As discussed in the sources, "generic" products or sciences lose their claim to uniqueness or originality, becoming "more common" and having a "common value". They are described as "modest without being banal" and possessing a "simple and local force". This contrasts with notions of the "grand and aristocratic". Exploring value through this lens allows for a focus on shared, accessible forms of material and experiential wealth, suggesting that "Materialism is useful" from this point of view.

Common Luxe, as conceived here, engages with the potential for "shared experiences, equitable access, and cooperative value creation". It represents a conceptual space for exploring how speculative and materialist perspectives can inform the design of realities that prioritize collective well-being. This conceptual exploration often finds tangible expression through methodologies like discursive design, which employs artifacts not merely for utility but as "goods for thinking", designed to make ideas tangible and provoke thought about alternative possibilities. The subsequent section, Part 2, will delve into specific examples of how this speculative project might take form through such design interventions.

Here is the preface of ComLuxe Index:

Preface

In the future documented here, luxury is not a possession, nor a rarefied prize.  

It is a practice — quiet, fragile, shared.

This is a record of unstable luxuries:  

moments of collective care, atmospheres tended in common, time made gentle between us.  

They are not fixed places or lasting monuments, but delicate agreements, endlessly remade.

The formality of this archive — its registries, its technical grace — is an offering, not an order.  

It honors what we have chosen to protect:  

our time, our tenderness, our breath, our ground, our quiet luxuries.

Here, the old tragedy is refused:  

not every commons is doomed to depletion.  

Some thrive because we remember, again and again, how to hold things together.

These common luxuries will not last without tending.  

They are alive, and like all living things, they ask for care.

This is a index not of ownership, but of relation —  

not of permanence, but of devotion.

May it remain unstable, malleable, and alive.

Here is the Categorize of ComLuxe Index:

Temporal Commons

Atmospheric Commons

Infrastructures of Care

Ecological Commons

Affective Commons

Emergent Luxuries

Part 2 : tangible manifestation of part 1

Introduction for Soften City Collection

Building upon the conceptual exploration of Common Luxe as a speculative project focused on collective well-being and the potential for alternative forms of shared value, this section presents "Soften City." This collection serves as a tangible, experiential articulation of these ideas, realized through the methodology of discursive design. Discursive design utilizes physical artifacts not merely as functional objects, but as "goods for thinking", deliberately crafted to communicate complex ideas and provoke reflection on specific themes. Part II of the source Discursive Design provides numerous examples and frameworks for understanding how artifacts function in practice to achieve these aims.

The "Soften City" collection translates abstract concepts—such as the right to stillness, dignified waiting, and the value of shared comfort—into concrete urban interventions. Each piece in the collection acts as a discursive object, using its form, material, and placement within the public realm to convey a message. For instance, the idea of promoting "living life horizontally" and a policy proposal for "Dignified Waiting & The Right to Stillness" are embodied in a public pillow made of chainmail mesh and a bus stop post hammock inscribed with the charter, respectively. Similarly, the notion of public care and physical ease is explored through a flower sculpture offering head massages.

These items engage in discoursing-through-design by making ideas tangible and experiential, aiming to stimulate thought and potentially influence perceptions or prompt "preferred thinking". The designer crafts both the "message-content" (the specific ideas, like the policy points) and the "message-form" (the physical manifestation as a pillow or hammock), ensuring they work in harmony. The collection challenges the habitual by introducing elements of unexpected comfort and explicit rights into traditionally rigid or overlooked public spaces like transit areas. By providing these discursive artifacts, "Soften City" seeks to open up a "higher quality conversation" about how our shared environments can prioritize collective ease and well-being, demonstrating how speculative ideas about Common Luxe can take physical form and encourage public engagement with alternative possibilities. This approach aligns with the view that design can function as a medium to remind, inform, inspire, provoke, or persuade audiences.

What is included in Soften City Collection:

Elevated public pillow

The public pillow is designed to promote "living life horizontally" by offering an aesthetically elevated alternative to typical public resting spaces. (Why must public infrastructures be ugly?) Its modular design allows for individual resting and meditation, as well as group use. Constructed with chainmail mesh, it's filled with hydro grains—a material commonly used for optimal drainage and aeration in potted plants—and shaped like a pyramid bean bag.

This artifact is a public pillow designed as part of the "Soften City" collection, intended to be deployed in public urban spaces, particularly transit areas. The collection functions as a tangible showcase for the theoretical concepts introduced in "Part 1: Common Luxe Index", specifically demonstrating alternative forms of value and well-being beyond conventional luxury.

• Form and Materials: The pillow is designed with a pyramid beanbag shape and is constructed using chainmail mesh, filled with hydro grains.

• Purpose: Promoting "Living Life Horizontally" & Alternative Public Resting: The central aim of this artifact is to promote "living life horizontally" in public space [conversation history]. Within the context of the project, this phrase signifies encouraging a state of chill, being well-rested, and allowing for alternative public resting situations. This directly counters the typical lack of comfortable resting spaces in public areas, which can be seen as a result of design choices aimed at preventing activities like "loitering, houseless activity and crimes". The pillow proposes that comfort, rest, and stillness ("Dignified Waiting") should be integrated into our shared environments 

• Challenging Aesthetics and Values: The artifact incorporates an elevated aesthetic and implicitly asks "why public infrastructures has to be ugly?" . By introducing a form and potentially an aesthetic quality (even with chainmail) that goes beyond mere function, it challenges the predominant "functionalist ethos" in design, which often views products primarily as "rational machines for doing". The project uses its artifacts to embody substantive ideas and make them tangible and experiential. 

• Material Choices and Symbolism: The use of chainmail mesh in a soft, yielding form creates a "strange familiarity" and dissonance. Chainmail, often associated with protection or rigidity, could be interpreted in relation to the common materials used in urban infrastructure (like metal barriers, fencing, etc.). Juxtaposing this hard, infrastructure-like material with the soft, comfortable form of a pillow challenges expectations of what public furniture can be. Similarly, being filled with hydro grains, which are used for plant drainage and aeration [conversation history], links the urban artifact to nature or biological processes. This creates another layer of dissonance, perhaps hinting at a desire to integrate more natural elements or care (like nurturing plants) into the built environment, challenging a purely urban or technological focus. The dissonance helps signal that "something conceptual is going on beyond mere utility and aesthetics".

• Modularity and Social Interaction: The mention that the pillow can be modular for groups of people suggests an intention to facilitate overt social behavior and interaction in public spaces, building on observations that current public seating often facilitates only covert socializing. It supports the idea that design can make it easier for people to "mingle and meet" by providing flexible options for shared occupation of space.

• Role as Discursive Design: Ultimately, this public pillow serves as a piece of discursive design. Its primary agenda is to "convey ideas" and "rouse reflection" in its audience. It is a "good(s) for thinking", designed to be appraised not just for its utility, but for what it means and says about culture and the possibilities for urban life. It challenges the audience to "look beyond the physicality" to find its message and meaning. By placing this unconventional, comfort-focused object in public, it acts as a provocation, encouraging people to consider alternative ways of valuing and designing their shared urban environment, consistent with the project's broader exploration of "Common Luxe"

A policy called  The "Charter of Dignified Waiting & The Right to Stillness" Policy Proposal

What it is: A policy called  The "Charter of Dignified Waiting & The Right to Stillness" Policy Proposal This charter explicitly defines and protects "dignified waiting" as a fundamental right in public transit areas. It is  presented as a  bus stop post resting pouf that has the charter print on it and is made with padded outdoor fabric. It attached to bus stop post, provide rest, warmth and resist strong wind,

The content of the Policy Proposal

Charter of Dignified Waiting & The Right to Stillness

[Preamble]

These civic commons public transit spaces,

often designed as mere conduits or non-spaces intended for rapid throughput and discouraging lingering, are not voids.

They are vital civic commons, belonging to all.

Existing conditions often fail us:

pressures of commerce, the gaze of surveillance,

the discomfort designed in concrete and steel.

We assert the fundamental right to redefine these spaces and claim a different reality,

countering the assumption that efficiency trumps dignity.

[Article I]

The Right to Dignified Waiting:

Every person, a claimant of this space.

Demanding comfort and safety. Adequate shelter secured. Seating that offers rest, rejecting hostile architecture in all its forms.

For mere passage is insufficient; we need places for simply being, for staying.

[Article II]

The Right to Stillness:

To be present, free from pressure to consume, free from unwarranted surveillance.

A sense of safety and privacy afforded.

The right to stillness to pause, reflect, exist, without imperative to move or transact.

A challenge to the relentless motion prioritized in spaces designed for rapid throughput.

[Article III]

Design as Affirmation:

Design here serves dignity.

Physical artifacts and spatial interventions act as intellectual prostheses, making these rights tangible. They communicate these principles, prompting encounter, deciphering, and reflection.

These are discursive acts, challenging norms and proposing futures.

[CONCLUSION]

Claiming Presence:

These rights are not theoretical limits.

They are standards for humane space.

From waiting endured, To presence embraced.

These rights redefine spaces often treated as voids into places of dignity and rest.

They elevate basic comfort, rest, shelter, and the right to simply be without pressure to the level of common luxury, accessible to all users of public transit.

These rights are non-negotiable.

Its primary aim is to operate as a discursive design, intended to convey ideas and rouse reflection in its audience.

• The Policy: At its core, the artifact represents "The Charter of Dignified Waiting & The Right to Stillness" Policy Proposal. This proposed policy is designed to explicitly define and protect "dignified waiting" as a fundamental right in public transit areas. This policy directly confronts the issue of recent bureaucratic trends that involve the removal of seating, such as benches, often in an effort to deter "loitering, houseless activity and crimes" . By proposing a policy that frames "dignified waiting" as a right, the artifact challenges these trends and asserts the importance of comfort, rest, and the ability to be still in public urban spaces.

• The Tangible Form: The abstract policy is made physical by being presented as a bus stop post resting pouf. The text of the policy itself is printed directly onto the pouf. This pouf is constructed from padded outdoor fabric and is designed to attach to a standard bus stop post. Functionally, it is intended to provide rest, warmth, and resist strong wind.

• Discursive Function: Presenting a policy proposal for "dignified waiting" as a pouf at a bus stop creates a striking sense of dissonance. Poufs are typically associated with leisure, comfort, and relaxation, starkly contrasting with the often uncomfortable, transient, and controlled nature of public transit waiting areas . This deliberate juxtaposition acts as a provocation. By physically embodying the policy's goals (rest, warmth, dignity) in a surprising form, the artifact encourages commuters and observers to pause, consider the meaning of "dignified waiting," and question the current design and values prioritizing discomfort or control in public spaces]. It translates an abstract political idea into a direct, experiential statement about urban life and shared rights. The artifact thus makes the policy "tangible and experiential", prompting reflection on what public space could prioritize beyond mere efficiency or control.

This is a deeper dive into the policy idea from the previous turn, presented as a formal legal or municipal policy document. Beyond basic needs, this charter explicitly defines and protects "dignified waiting" as a fundamental right in public transit areas. It includes provisions that prohibit the deliberate design of spaces to be uncomfortable (e.g., deliberately uncomfortable seating, lack of seating, hostile architecture), ensures access to adequate, free, and clean seating/resting areas that are sheltered and safe, and perhaps most radically, enshrines "The Right to Stillness" – the right to simply be in the space without obligation to move, consume, or interact, free from surveillance or pressure. The "artifact" is the text of the proposed charter, potentially accompanied by a visual campaign showing spaces designed according to the charter vs. existing spaces.

Directly addresses the feeling of being unwelcome or undignified in waiting areas, providing a sense of security, comfort, and validation for simply existing in the space. It counters loneliness by establishing a framework of shared rights for all occupants. Fundamentally redefines these "non-spaces" (often designed for rapid throughput and discouraging loitering) as legitimate places for temporary human occupation and rest. It creates a conceptual "space" for stillness and dignity within the flow. Elevates basic comfort, rest, shelter, and the right to simply be without pressure or surveillance to the level of common luxury. These are presented as universal, non-commodified rights accessible to all users of public transit, regardless of their ability to purchase food, shelter, or other services. It challenges the "concrete world" where comfort and rest are often contingent on consumption or having a destination elsewhere. This policy is non-adaptive due to its direct opposes the current trend towards hostile architecture and the marginalization of those who spend time in public spaces without a clear commercial purpose. It challenges the assumption that efficiency trumps dignity or that waiting time is unproductive time to be minimized or made unpleasant. By proposing a world where dignified waiting is a protected right, it functions as a "good for thinking," forcing reflection on who our public spaces are truly designed for and what fundamental human needs are currently neglected. It uses a legal/policy framework as a "discursive artifact" to critique the existing social and spatial contract.