40 HOUSES

Architecture is, among other things, a way to measure time. Buildings persist long after the moments that produced them, allowing the present to remain in conversation with the past. Yet our own moment often feels resistant to easy categorization. If earlier eras could be summarized by recognizable movements or shared aesthetic programs, from our current vantage point the early 21st century still appears more fragmented, defined less by stylistic consensus than by overlapping tendencies, technologies, and economies that rarely resolve into one image. The single-family house remains architecture's most intimate — and most contested — laboratory for observing these shifts. It is where ideology meets habit, where ambition clashes with zoning, budgets, neighbors, weather, children, pets, and the other mundanities of daily life. If the 20th century used the house to project manifestos, the 21st has turned it into a site of negotiation: between privacy and exposure, individuality and standardization, permanence and mobility. The 40 projects gathered here form a deliberately unruly constellation: urban villas and rural retreats, globally recognized icons and projects so discreet they are barely noticeable. Some pursue technological experimentation, while others return to elemental ideas of shelter, local craft, and landscape. What unites them is not style but attitude: each tests what domestic life looks like in the first quarter of the 21st century. The selection itself reflects the field that produced it. PIN–UP invited more than 100 architects from around the world to nominate three single-family houses that, in their view, best define architecture in the early 21st century. The resulting pool of nominations inevitably reflects the geographies, references, and biases of its contributors. Patterns nonetheless emerge, charting the tendencies, strategies, and recurring questions that structure how we live today. While defining an era from within may seem impossible, we invite you to approach this selection exactly as PIN–UP treats all self-declared canons: as absolute, definitive, and entirely beyond dispute.

NOMINATION COMMITTEE
ANY
Adam Rolston / INC Architecture & Design
Alejandro Aravena / ELEMENTAL
Alberto Campo Baeza
Amanda Levete / AL_A
Amin Taha / GROUPWORK
Andrea Caputo
Andrea Faraguna
Andrés Jaque / OFFPOLINN
Anne Holtrop / Anne Holtrop Architect
Annabelle Selldorf
Anupama Kundoo
Aranda/Lasch
Arno Brandlhuber / Brandlhuber+
Arrhov Frick
Ashe Leandro
Aziz Alqatami
Barclay & Crousse
Barozzi Veiga
BB
Bernard Dubois
Bettina Kraus
Bijoy Jain / Studio Mumbai
Bjarke Ingels / BIG
Büro Koray Duman
CAPTCHA Architecture
Carla Juaçaba
Carlo Ratti Associati
Charles Renfro / Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Charlap Hyman & Herrero
Chat Architects
Christian Kerez
Christian Wassmann
Dar Arafa Architecture
David Kohn
Descloux Engelschall
Didier Faustino
Dong-Ping Wong / Food
Dorte Mandrup
Ensamble Studio
Eugene Tssui
Fala Atelier
Fuhrimann Hächler Architekten
Glenn DeRoche
Guillermo Santomà
Herzog & de Meuron
Husband Wife
India Mahdavi
Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli / 2050+
i.s.m.architecten
Jayden Ali / JA Projects
Jeanne Gang / Studio Gang
Jerome Byron
John Pawson
Johnston Marklee
Jürgen Mayer H.
Julien De Smedt / JDSA
Kevin Greenberg / Space Exploration
Kuehn Malvezzi
Kulapat Yantrasast / WHY Architecture
LANZA Atelier
Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture
LOT-EK
Luca Cipelletti / AR.CH.IT
Manuel Herz
Mariam Issoufou
Michael Maltzan
Common Accounts
Mohamad Nahleh
MOS
Neri & Hu
Oana Stănescu
Octave Perrault
OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen
OOPEAA Office for Peripheral Architecture
Pezo von Ellrichshausen
Peterson Rich Office
Philippe Rahm
Peter Zumthor
Rafael de Cárdenas
Reiser + Umemoto
Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop
Sam Chermayeff
SelgasCano
Shohei Shigematsu / OMA New York
Smiljan Radić
SO–IL
Steven Holl
Studio Daniel Libeskind
Sukchulmok
Sumayya Vally / Counterspace
Tatiana Bilbao
Tei Carpenter / Agency—Agency
Toshiko Mori
Tropical Space
UNStudio
Vincent Van Duysen
Winka Dubbeldam / Archi-Tectonics
WOJR
WORKac
Worofila
Yabu Pushelberg