err: what are your thoughts on the future of housing?

the housing bubble will pop on the east and west coasts, splattering the inner states with wads of cash. mcmansions will be traded for tractors and farmhomes in the hinterlands. suburbs will be repopulated and rearranged as zero-energy input 2x4 jungles. skyscrapers will become low-price stairmasters. you'll be able to pay a few sheckles to run up and down them a few times to get your exercise. culverts will be rediscovered as optimum structures, and architects brains will be devalued as more and more people realize that fanciful shapes occur everywhere, not just in computers.

I like density - but they tell me to avoid condos . . .

tadsthetadz - yout most interesting housing typology is bland, plain, repetitive, rigid

Volume housebuilding is calling you - you'll never be out of a job... or the pattern book.

there are many alternatives in housing emerging...
it seems to me your conception of housing is trapped in a classical notion...
which is exactly the problem: suburban houses, new urbanism, etc.
many designers confine themselves in this one dimensional understanding of housing.. few of us understand that housing is the very fabric that binds an urban community...thus it is very much significant and relevant...rethinking it or reinventing it is necessary.

i would recommend a book by manuel gausa

Look at the book Housing+Single Family Houses, published by ACTAR.

What's wrong with old alternatives?

Single-family, multi-family, apartments over shops, row houses, small flats, courtyard buildings, towers in a park, maisonettes in town, mid-rise walk-ups, bungalow courts, et cetera.

No need to reinvent the wheel, though creative interpretations are good, and what we're known for...

monotonous, repetetive, devoid of creativity

Well, then, tads, get to work! All those architects, builders, investors and developers hard at work over hundreds of years--who you dismiss in less than a sentence--have lots to learn from you!

CASTLES are the future.