ONE OF MODERNISM’S most ambitious goals was to house the masses through efficient, affordable, and mass-produced architecture. While the success of this project differs wildly from locale to locale, it is almost universally associated in the West with steel, reinforced concrete, and plate glass. Ironically, one of the systems that perhaps best fulfilled these dreams in the United States is an entirely different material, and one underpinning 90 percent of single-family homes in the United States: softwood framed construction. Despite its ubiquity, traditional architectural discourse has rarely