engineering

Pie house

Pie house is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Pie house rather than just read about it. In short: The pie house, sometimes referred to as the Deerfield pie house or the Deerfield skinny house, is a two-story house located in Deerfield, Illinois, United States. It is located at 970 Chestnut Street, and is near the Deerfield Metra station.

Key takeaways

Pie house belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Pie house to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Pie house from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The pie house, sometimes referred to as the Deerfield pie house or the Deerfield skinny house, is a two-story house located in Deerfield, Illinois, United States. It is located at 970 Chestnut Street, and is near the Deerfield Metra station. The beige-sided house was built to fit a narrow lot and has attracted attention due to its unusual shape. The house is not rectangular, but rather trapezoidal, and attained its primary nickname due to its resemblance to the shape of a slice of pie. The house has gained media attention after being featured in a viral video on the social media platform TikTok in August 2020. Since then, it has been featured on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and has been covered by the Chicago Tribune, both of which have further increased its attention.

Description The home was built in 2003 on a small, irregularly shaped lot at 970 Chestnut Street in the Chicago suburb of Deerfield. The house is trapezoidal in shape, rather than the traditional rectangular shape, which has inspired its nickname, the "pie house", due to its apparent resemblance to a slice of pie. The triangular lot it sits on measures only 3,876 square feet (360.1 m2), which contributes to the house's unusual shape. Despite outcry from neighbors, the village of Deerfield was not able to force any changes to be made to the design of the house as it met all building codes and was not legally required to be changed in any way. The house is two stories tall, and has a finished basement. It has more than 1,600 square feet (150 m2) of floor space, and contains two bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and an additional half bathroom. The ground level of the home follows an open concept plan. The narrowest side of the house measures 3 feet (0.91 m) wide, with the widest side of the house reaching a width of 18 feet (5.5 m). An outdoor patio borders the wider end of the house.

Purchases The home sold on August 6, 2020, with a list price of US$269,000 and an eventual purchase price of $260,000. It was listed for rental on Airbnb shortly afterwards, in October 2020. The house was put up for sale again in May 2021 for $300,000; it sold for $295,000 later that same month.

Media attention At the time the house was up for sale in August 2020, TikTok user @eli.korns_ recorded and posted a video of himself examining the house's exterior and showing amazement at its unusual dimensions. This video ended up going viral, receiving over one million views; attracting significant media attention to the house. Since then, the house has been featured on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and has been covered by numerous media outlets, including the Chicago Tribune.

See also Casa Scaccabarozzi, house with a similar shape and name Any of various spite houses, some of which are comically narrow, and also earn neighbors' disapproval

Notes

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Pie house

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Pie house claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Pie house before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Pie house ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Pie house

In research: Pie house appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Pie house in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Pie house is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Buildings and structures completed in 2003, Deerfield, Illinois, Houses in Lake County, Illinois, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Pie house outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Pie house in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Pie house means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Pie house out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Pie house in simple terms?

Why does Pie house matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Pie house?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Pie house.