Decoding Homes and Houses uses a computer-based method of analysis to explore the relation between the design and layout of traditional, vernacular, speculative and architect-designed houses and people's evolving tastes, lifestyles, habits and domestic routines. Its purpose is to show how it is possible to explore the relation between house form and culture by looking at the social information that is crystallized in the layouts of the houses themselves (as opposed to asking people how they respond to them).

Based on a new way of describing and analyzing the kinds of spatial patterns produced by buildings and towns, this study presents a new theory of space: how and why it is a vital component of how societies work. The authors examine what it is about different types of societies that leads them to adopt different spatial forms and from this general theory they outline a "pathology of modern urbanism" in today's social context.