On his Website, Smart describes TMH as "an award-winning nonprofit educational archive for cataloging, preserving, and advocating modernist residential design in the Triangle area of North Carolina." He defines modernist design as being "characterized by features such as combining traditionally separate common areas (like the living room and the dining room, for example), open interior floor plans with vaulted ceilings, large and numerous windows, flat or low pitched roofs, long exposed beams, extensive use of glass to bring in natural light, and aesthetic geometric forms. This style is rare in comparison to the rest of the housing market. An entirely unscientific estimate is that about a quarter of one percent of the residences in the Triangle could be categorized as modernist." Smart says "even that may be high."

In conjunction with the 60th anniversary of NCSU's College of Design, TMH will host a tour of modernist homes designed by Frank Harmon, Vinny Petraca, and James Fitzgibbons. A fleet of buses will take participants to each house where plans are to have the original architect or an authority on the house present. Individual tickets will be approximately $25 each and available to the general public mid-January.