This publication is the direct product of teaching practice. By sporadically presenting our students with exercises in housing, we have gradually built up the collection of references and analyses published here. An attempt to justify the choice made would be impossible, if not wrong. The basis of an anthology is always subjectivity (in this case shared: many different agents have been involved in its gestation). Yet, in spite of this, in spite of their partiality, good anthologies throw light on a territory that many others share, either in fact or potentially. This is the attitude that has guided the choice made here. The chosen approach sets out to be geographically global, without relinquishing our honre ground, and begins chronologically in the 1980s. This itinerary, considered in hindsight, somehow visible only once it has been given form in this volume, is marked by clearly distinguishable phases or themes: it begins with works in Brazil and India, clearly reflecting earlier vibrations (Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn) that reappear on the periphery, apart from the post-modern historicism of the times. Then comes a whole series of European works from the 1990s, with a Dutch accent. Next, our gaze lingers on various Asian projects, attracted by floor plans, scales and contexts that are both familiar and distant. It ends with an unclassifiable conglomeration of recent works by younger architects. The volume includes analyses and texts that were written as the selection was built up. They are like the mortar binding the bricks in the wall. This book can be regarded as an inventory-cum-manual and, as such, presents a practical accumulation of data. Its ultimate purpose, however, is to prompt new projects that definitively turn its contents into part of history.