Fashioning common household objects with a Modernist industrial design aesthetic, Zittel explores the necessities of everyday living to better understand her environment and her fellow man. Her A-Z Enterprise—based in her isolated home in Joshua Tree, California—is an “institute of investigative living" where she designs and produces furniture, clothes, food, and various objects and articles of daily use. Starting in the early 1990s, Zittel created mobile “Living Units” that unfold into self-sufficient areas for sleeping, eating, bathing, and working. By isolating herself for a month on the site-specific A-Z Pocket Property (1999), a 44-ton floating concrete island anchored off the coast of Denmark, the artist further explored control within one’s living situation, as well as the experience of isolation and escapism.