Summary

In the academic year 2000-2001, Yale professor and New York City- based architect Peggy Deamer led two innovative courses: a focused seminar on the state of contemporary residential design and a creative studio offering house designs that drew on the discoveries of the seminar. This book combines work from both courses in a thoughtful and provocative study of the state of the house at the turn of the millennium. Deamer introduces the volume with an essay on three issues vital to a discussion of millennial design: newness, uniqueness, and design innovation. Designs of visiting seminar critics -- Steven Holl, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, William McDonough, LOT/EK, Winy Maas, and Jacques Herzog -- are showcased along with descriptive and analytical texts. Work from the studio course is divided into various themes explored by the students: image, standardization and modularity, networks and diagrams. The hybrid quality of this volume -- designs by practicing architects and by students; observation and interpretation -- reflects debates and issues at the heart of early-twenty-first-century architecture.