The changing configuration of domestic space is explored through this study of 20 innovative contemporary houses designed by 20 architects from around the world. An essay by critic and historian Mercedes Daguerre describes historical responses to the challenges of designing an individual home and discusses how contemporary work by the featured architects tackles new family structures, priorities and changing technologies.

The book presents a broad range of examples from Europe, the Americas and Australia designed by widely-acclaimed architects such as Rem Koolhaas, Tadao Ando and Glenn Murcutt plus work by lesser-known, emerging practices. Their work creates architecture in response to a diverse range of particular conditions – some geographical, some personal, some technological. Koolhaas’s house in Floirac, France for a wheelchair-using client for example incorporates a workstation on a platform that can be raised or lowered to plug into any of the house’s three levels. In Uruguay, Mariano Clusellas’s Casa Blue delta house is raised on piles to cope with its sandy, waterside location. Architect Werner Sobek’s own house in Stuttgart, Germany utilises solar panels, heat exchange technology and triple glazing to create a family house that needs no external power supply.

Each featured project includes biographical detail for the architect, a description of the house plus photographs, plans and drawings.