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.

Nina Rappaport is an editorial consultant and teaches at Yale and the City College of the City University of New York. She is the editor of Constructs, the biannual magazine of the Yale School of Architecture.

Robert A. M. Stern is the dean of the Yale School of Architecture, founder and senior partner of Robert A. M. Stern Architects, and author of many books on architecture and architectural history.