Get Your House Right: Architectural Elements to Use & Avoid by Marianne Cusato 

WMA ICAA in conjunction with Philadelphia ICAA invites you to a Lunch & Learn with Marianne Cusato

February 20, 2026

VIRTUAL EVENT

 Marianne Cusato is renowned for her work on innovative housing solutions for disaster recovery and workforce housing. Architecture is like a language. Like any language it has a vocabulary (the building elements, such as windows, doors and eaves) and grammar (the rules that we use to assemble the elements.) Unfortunately, all too often work produced today, “doesn’t feel quite right.” This lecture seeks to restore an understanding of how to speak this language by illustrating where common mistakes happen and instructing how to avoid these mistakes.

This is a foundational presentation calibrated to offer something for designers and builders of all levels of interest and ability. Topics include:

Design Composition: A balance of theory and details exploring the principles of design composition (scale vs size, proportion, hierarchy, etc.) and the application of these principles into the design of a home (roof massing and window proportion).

Application of Classical Architecture: With a foundation of design composition, we will look at how the language of classical architecture is employed at a range of price points from the simplest buildings to the highest end.