In 1992 Zittel produced the “A-Z Management and Maintenance Unit", her first “Living Unit”— experimental structures intended to reduce everything necessary for living into a simple, compact system—as a means of facilitating basic activities within her 200-square-foot (19 m2) Brooklyn storefront apartment. The unit contains a small dining booth, plastic sink, stovetop, closet, sleeping cot, and stool—fulfilling basic domestic needs of eating, sleeping, cleaning and storage. Though often recalling mass-produced commodities, Zittel’s “Living Units” are in actuality highly personal, customized for individual needs. Zittel’s works encourage a greater personal and social responsibility in prompting an active re-examination of needs and routines. “Where on the one hand, mass production may cause greater equality by making the same goods available to everyone,” Zittel said, “on the other hand it diminishes individuality and identity. What we as consumers must do is to redefine our objects within the context of our own needs.”