Carthusians monks refer to their cells as 'deserts.' The cell is a remote site at the margins of civilization, distant from the noise of society and mundane temptations. A desert is not only the place where all customs, personal bonds, and historical stratifications fall apart but also where any consolidated societal structure can be questioned and examined. Nevertheless, the ascetic dimension that the cell implies should be considered neither an exodus nor a refuge from society but rather as an instrument to understand how to live together and dwell in the world: a physical and mental practice for cultivating new strategies of collective organization. Deserts explore the typology of the Carthusian monastery as an architecture of absolute rationality - wherein life cannot be detached from the spaces, the bodily gestures, and the ritual it performs - conjecturing a series of domestic projects that radicalize the way we produce ourselves.