Few places in the world match the New York City borough of Queens for the sheer variety of languages and cultures that share its streets. This did not go unnoticed by Rafael Herrin-Ferri, a Spanish-born architect now living in New York, who began photographing the borough’s houses in 2012 and later compiled his work in the book All the Queens Houses (2021).

Taking its name from the book, this short film by the New York-based filmmaker Sean Mowry is built around Herrin-Ferri’s photographs, with the architect explaining the stories behind some of his favourite houses. As he walks us through their quirks – from unexpected additions to idiosyncratic details – he uncovers how residents, less concerned with conforming to the standardised aesthetic of other neighbourhoods, have adapted their homes to reflect their own ideas of what home should be. In doing so, these houses reveal how successive waves of migration, adaptation and everyday acts of self-expression have shaped Queens, suggesting that a city’s history is written as much in its everyday architecture as in its monuments.