This book inquires into the way in which house design is now conceived as being inseparable from its physical context, and offers new insights into the state of the art in contemporary architecture in Italy. The evidence shows a break in the trend of facile simplifications of the Deconstructionist and Minimalist formulas, which for a while held a prominent place in design philosophy. Consequently, the projects showcased here are generally less eccentric in their ways of bonding the architecture with the setting, and are purged of previous figurative mannerisms, showing instead greater focus on expressing a new formal order.