These days, when not changing the nappies of his latest adoptee, Brad Pitt spends much of his time in New Orleans helping to run the Make It Right foundation. Founded with billionaire businessman Steve Bing, the charity aims to provide new homes for long-displaced victims of hurricane Katrina. Yet though Pitt’s pet project champions low-cost houses, the film star and design buff has tweaked the standard brief for affordable homes: he’s challenged architects to find ways to build cheap houses that are both architecturally interesting and also eco-friendly. Starchitect David Adjaye has already signed up.

Pitt’s celebrity status has ensured widespread attention for Make It Right but in some ways his project has already been gazumped. For several years, in fact, the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America and Habitat for Humanity have been working on a similar, if not celebrity-endorsed, initiative. Its far-reaching goal is to identify exactly what makes affordable housing recognisable and problematic, then encourage architects to remedy the problem across America. The ideal outcome: a design-savvy blueprint for 21st century low-cost living – or, put more simply, cheap, durable, beautiful homes.