Each year approximately one million new single family houses are built in this country. Of those built, very few are designed with a particular owner, program or site in mind, and architects are only minimally involved. Most are production houses bought from plan services or modified in-house by a developer or contractor from a set of stock plans. The American suburbs and countryside are increasingly filled with examples of these houses that are not homes at all but commodities of the marketplace.

This design problem has two premises. The first is that architects can help make not just better houses, but homes. The second is that the house design problem, for many years neglected by academic institutions, is a valuable tool for the training of architects in our diverse and complex American culture.