International audience The common modern detached house is much indebted architecturally to the imagination of the aristocratic follies of the eighteenth century and the hygienist theories of the nineteenth century. They both are responsible for creating a solitary object around which the owner can circulate. The detached house’s space occupation (that the author has already studied extensively) corresponds perfectly to the quiet life sought by its inhabitant and the reluctance of this inhabitant towards adjacent townhouses. Yet, this form of housing consumes too much of building land, makes this land scarce and expensive while complicating all the networks, which serve it. Understanding the hidden mechanisms of attractive cultural construction that is the detached home (and not only the "ideology against the detached housing ") can help the recognition (re-cognition) of the cohousing, with small garden, as an alternative to detached house in the context of urban growth.