architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

, an area (areaway in North America) is an excavated, subterranean space around the walls of a building, designed to admit light into a

basement A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. It generally is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, ...

. Also called a

lightwell In architecture, a lightwell,light well, light-well sky-well,skywell, sky well or air shaft is an unroofed or roofed external space provided within the volume of a large building to allow light and air to reach what would otherwise be a dark or ...

, it often provides access to the house and a store-room/service cupboard for

tradesmen A tradesman, tradeswoman, or tradesperson is a skilled worker that specializes in a particular trade (occupation or field of work). Tradesmen usually have work experience, on-the-job training, and often formal vocational education in contrast ...

, such as a coal store vault under the pavement. The term is most commonly applied to urban houses of the

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

period in the UK, where it was normal for the service rooms, such as the

kitchen A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. A modern middle-class residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a ...

scullery A scullery is a room in a house, traditionally used for washing up dishes and laundering clothes, or as an overflow kitchen. Tasks performed in the scullery include cleaning dishes and cooking utensils (or storing them), occasional kitchen work, ...

and

laundry Laundry refers to the washing of clothing and other textiles, and, more broadly, their drying and ironing as well. Laundry has been part of history since humans began to wear clothes, so the methods by which different cultures have dealt with t ...

, to be in the basement. Areas were commonly enclosed for safety reasons by wrought iron or cast iron railings, which became one of the principal decorative features of the

astylar Astylar (from Gr. ''ἀ-'', privative, and ''στῦλος'', a column) is an architectural term given to a class of design in which neither columns nor pilasters are used for decorative purposes; thus the Riccardi and Strozzi palaces in Florence ...

terraced house In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house ( UK) or townhouse ( US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings share side walls. In the United State ...

s of this period. Areas are also found in the English and French

country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...

, where basements were popular in the 18th century as a way of accommodating service functions while allowing all four faces of a symmetrical Classical building to relate directly to its landscape setting, as at

Mereworth Castle Mereworth Castle is a grade I listed Neo-Palladian country house in Mereworth, Kent, England. This source attributes the plasterwork to Francesco Bagutti, but Giovanni Bagutti would appear to be more likely. History Originally the site of ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

or The Abbey in

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...

. Basements, and consequently areas, decreased in popularity in the 19th century, as attitudes to servants changed, although they continued to be constructed as service accommodation in urban settings where land was at a premium until the early 20th century. A suburban residential application can be seen at the Gamble House in

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

, California, to light the laundry and service areas of the expansive basement. In early 18th-century house descriptions, the area was usually called the "airy", which suggests that its primary function was ventilation, needed to prevent cooking smells from percolating upstairs to the rooms above. This implies that the term "area" was a corruption of "airey" rather than vice versa.D. Cruickshank and N. Burton, ''Life in the Georgian city'', 1990, pp. 52–53, 83–85.

Airey

North London North London is the northern part of London, England, north of the River Thames. It extends from Clerkenwell and Finsbury, on the edge of the City of London financial district, to Greater London's boundary with Hertfordshire. The term ''nort ...

, it was known colloquially as "the airey". It is a subject of an old-time children's ball-bouncing rhyme, which begins:

"One, two, three, alairy
My ball is down the airey
Don't forget to give it to Mary
Early in the morning".

References

{{Reflist Building engineering Architectural terminology

Airey

See also

References