Five Ingredients for an Extraordinary Home

Want to create the home of your dreams? According to an esteemed panel of residential architects, you’ll need only five ingredients:

1. Right response to site and content
2. Comfortable scale inside and out
3. Livability for everyday life and special occasions
4. Deep respect for materials and craft
5. Distinctiveness, or “wow” factor

The panel was assembled for the publication of Celebrating the American Home: 50 Great Houses from 50 American Architects, a joint imprint of the Taunton Press (best known for their magazine Fine Homebuilding) and the American Institute of Architects. The criteria used to select homes for inclusion in the book seem simple enough, but the result is a startlingly varied ensemble of recent American homes, ranging in appearance, size, cost, and location.