Louis Edward Sauer (born 1928) is a North American architect and design theorist. In the 1960s, and 1970s, Sauer worked with housing developers to produce low-rise high-density housing projects. During his tenure as principal of Louis Sauer Associates, Architects located in Philadelphia (1961–79), his work focused on over 90 residential and urban design commissions in central city urban infill, suburban and rural areas, and new town developments in Reston (Virginia), Columbia (Maryland) and Montreal (Quebec). Sauer's contributions to low-rise, high-density housing were considered innovative in the 'row-housing' form. Sauer's designs for the David Buten House Philadelphia in particular, and Pastorius Mews, were early templates for the system he developed. The conceptual innovation for most of these housing designs was a or structural and functional module, which was part of a grid. Sauer's advocacy work with the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority on the Morton Urban Renewal Project (MURP) for a low-income minority neighbourhood helped to define his career interest in advocating for improved design and planning for people left out of the market economy and generally neglected by mainstream design professionals. This interest led him to employ the social sciences (especially social-psychology) in his design research and programming in order to better understand the interrelationships between architecture and the occupancy needs of the anticipated users of his sites and buildings. Personal life Louis Sauer was born to an Italian mother and a German father, both doctors in alternative medicine, with the family living modestly in Oak Park Illinois. Between the ages of ten and eighteen, Sauer would go on to work a variety of part-time jobs: as a window washer, corner newspaper boy, life guard, magazine distributor, shoe salesman, etc. After graduating from Oak Park and River Forest High School in 1946, Sauer began as a student in pre-medicine at DePaugh University, but moved out of the sciences to pursue an interest in art and photography, discovering a passion for architecture and modern design while studying at Moholy-Nagy's 'New Bauhaus' (named the Institute of Design of the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1952) from 1949 to 1953 in Chicago. Sauer holds dual citizenship in the United States and Canada. He lives in Tasmania, Australia. Early career At age 25, Sauer was conscripted into the US Army. After basic training at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas, Sauer joined the occupying army in Baumholder, Germany (December 1953 to June 1955) as Private First Class in the