A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and

heating, ventilation, and air conditioning Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. HV ...

systems.Schoenauer, Norbert (2000). ''6,000 Years of Housing'' (rev. ed.) (New York: W.W. Norton & Company). Houses use a range of different roofing systems to keep precipitation such as rain from getting into the dwelling space. Houses may have

door A door is a hinged or otherwise movable barrier that allows ingress (entry) into and egress (exit) from an enclosure. The created opening in the wall is a ''doorway'' or ''portal''. A door's essential and primary purpose is to provide security b ...

s or locks to secure the dwelling space and protect its inhabitants and contents from burglars or other trespassers. Most conventional modern houses in Western cultures will contain one or more

bedroom A bedroom or bedchamber is a room situated within a residential or accommodation unit characterised by its usage for sleeping and sexual activity. A typical western bedroom contains as bedroom furniture one or two beds (ranging from a crib for ...

s and bathrooms, a kitchen or cooking area, and a living room. A house may have a separate

dining room A dining room is a room (architecture), room for eating, consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level. Historically ...

, or the eating area may be integrated into another room. Some large houses in North America have a recreation room. In traditional agriculture-oriented societies,

domestic animals This page gives a list of domesticated animals, also including a list of animals which are or may be currently undergoing the process of domestication and animals that have an extensive relationship with humans beyond simple predation. This includ ...

such as chickens or larger livestock (like cattle) may share part of the house with humans. The social unit that lives in a house is known as a household. Most commonly, a household is a family unit of some kind, although households may also be other social groups, such as

roommate A roommate is a person with whom one shares a living facility such as a room or dormitory ''except'' when being family or romantically involved. Similar terms include dormmate, suitemate, housemate, or flatmate ("flat": the usual term in Britis ...

s or, in a

rooming house A rooming house, also called a "multi-tenant house", is a "dwelling with multiple rooms rented out individually", in which the tenants share kitchen and often bathroom facilities. Rooming houses are often used as housing for low-income people, as ...

, unconnected individuals. Some houses only have a dwelling space for one family or similar-sized group; larger houses called townhouses or

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

s may contain numerous family dwellings in the same structure. A house may be accompanied by outbuildings, such as a garage for vehicles or a

shed A shed is typically a simple, single-story roofed structure that is used for hobbies, or as a workshop in a back garden or on an allotment. Sheds vary considerably in their size and complexity of construction, from simple open-sided ones de ...

for gardening equipment and tools. A house may have a

backyard A backyard, or back yard (known in the United Kingdom as a back garden or just garden), is a yard at the back of a house, common in suburban developments in the Western world. In Australia, until the mid-20th century, the back yard of a pro ...

or a

front yard On a residential area, a front yard (United States, Canada, Australia) or front garden (United Kingdom, Europe) is the portion of land between the street and the front of the house. If it is covered in grass, it may be referred to as a front law ...

or both, which serve as additional areas where inhabitants can relax or eat.

Etymology

The English word ''

house A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...

'' derives directly from the Old English ''hus'' meaning "dwelling, shelter, home, house," which in turn derives from Proto-Germanic ''husan'' (reconstructed by etymological analysis) which is of unknown origin. The house itself gave rise to the letter 'B' through an early Proto-Semitic hieroglyphic symbol depicting a house. The symbol was called "bayt", "bet" or "beth" in various related languages, and became ''

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiod ...

'', the Greek letter, before it was used by the Romans. ''

Beit A Beit (also spelled bait, ar, بيت , literally "a house") is a metrical unit of Arabic, Iranian, Urdu and Sindhi poetry. It corresponds to a line, though sometimes improperly renderered as "couplet" since each ''beit'' is divided into ...

'' in Arabic means house, while in Maltese ''bejt'' refers to the roof of the house.

Elements

Layout

Ideally, architects of houses design rooms to meet the needs of the people who will live in the house. Feng shui, originally a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

method of moving houses according to such factors as rain and micro-climates, has recently expanded its scope to address the design of interior spaces, with a view to promoting harmonious effects on the people living inside the house, although no actual effect has ever been demonstrated. Feng shui can also mean the "aura" in or around a dwelling, making it comparable to the real estate sales concept of "indoor-outdoor flow". The

square footage The square foot (plural square feet; abbreviated sq. ft, sf, or ft2; also denoted by '2) is an imperial unit and U.S. customary unit (non- SI, non-metric) of area, used mainly in the United States and partially in Canada, the United Kingdom, Bang ...

of a house in the United States reports the area of "living space", excluding the garage and other non-living spaces. The "square metres" figure of a house in Europe reports the area of the walls enclosing the home, and thus includes any attached garage and non-living spaces. The number of floors or levels making up the house can affect the square footage of a home. Vogelhaus Modell Eduard 4

Humans often build houses for domestic or wild animals, often resembling smaller versions of human domiciles. Familiar animal houses built by humans include birdhouses,

henhouse Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to produce meat or eggs for food. Poultry – mostly chickens – are farmed in great numbers. More than 60 billion ch ...

s and doghouses, while housed agricultural animals more often live in barns and

stable A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals and livestock. There are many different types of stables in use today; the ...

Parts

Many houses have several large rooms with specialized functions and several very small rooms for other various reasons. These may include a living/eating area, a sleeping area, and (if suitable facilities and services exist) separate or combined washing and lavatory areas. Some larger properties may also feature rooms such as a spa room, indoor pool, indoor basketball court, and other 'non-essential' facilities. In traditional agriculture-oriented societies, domestic animals such as chickens or larger livestock often share part of the house with humans. Most conventional modern houses will at least contain a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen or cooking area, and a living room. The names of parts of a house often echo the names of parts of other buildings, but could typically include: * Alcove * Atrium *

Attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...

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, ...

/ cellar * Bathroom *

Bedroom A bedroom or bedchamber is a room situated within a residential or accommodation unit characterised by its usage for sleeping and sexual activity. A typical western bedroom contains as bedroom furniture one or two beds (ranging from a crib for ...

(or nursery) *

Box-room In a building or large vehicle, like a ship, a room is any enclosed space within a number of walls to which entry is possible only via a door or other dividing structure that connects it to either a passageway, another room, or the outdoors, tha ...

/ storage room * Conservatory *

Dining room A dining room is a room (architecture), room for eating, consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level. Historically ...

* Family room or

den Den may refer to: * Den (room), a small room in a house * Maternity den, a lair where an animal gives birth Media and entertainment * ''Den'' (album), 2012, by Kreidler * Den (''Battle Angel Alita''), a character in the ''Battle Angel Alita' ...

* Fireplace * Foyer * Front room * Garage * Hallway / passage /

Vestibule Vestibule or Vestibulum can have the following meanings, each primarily based upon a common origin, from early 17th century French, derived from Latin ''vestibulum, -i n.'' "entrance court". Anatomy In general, vestibule is a small space or cavity ...

Hearth A hearth () is the place in a home where a fire is or was traditionally kept for home heating and for cooking, usually constituted by at least a horizontal hearthstone and often enclosed to varying degrees by any combination of reredos (a lo ...

Home-office Small office/home office (or single office/home office; sometimes short SOHO) refers to the category of business or cottage industry that involves from 1 to 10 workers. In New Zealand, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) ...

study Study or studies may refer to: General * Education **Higher education * Clinical trial * Experiment * Observational study * Research * Study skills, abilities and approaches applied to learning Other * Study (art), a drawing or series of drawi ...

* Kitchen * Larder * Laundry room * Library * Living room *

Loft A loft is a building's upper storey or elevated area in a room directly under the roof (American usage), or just an attic: a storage space under the roof usually accessed by a ladder (primarily British usage). A loft apartment refers to large ...

* Nook * Pantry * Parlour * Pew / porch * Recreation room /

rumpus room A recreation room (also known as a rec room, rumpus room, play room, playroom, games room, or ruckus room) is a room used for a variety of purposes, such as parties, games and other everyday or casual activities. The term ''recreation room'' is c ...

/ television room * Shrines to serve the religious functions associated with a family * Stairwell * Sunroom *

Swimming pool A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable Human swimming, swimming or other leisure activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built ...

* Window * Workshop

History

Little is known about the earliest origin of the house and its interior, however it can be traced back to the simplest form of shelters. An exceptionally well-preserved house dating to the fifth millennium BC and with its contents still preserved was for example excavated at Tell Madhur in Iraq. Roman architect Vitruvius' theories have claimed the first form of architecture as a frame of timber branches finished in mud, also known as the

primitive hut The Primitive Hut is a concept that explores the origins of architecture and its practice. The concept explores the anthropological relationship between human and the natural environment as the fundamental basis for the creation of architecture. T ...

. Hill, Jonathan, “Immaterial Architecture”, New York: Routledge, 2006. Philip Tabor later states the contribution of 17th century Dutch houses as the foundation of houses today.

Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages, the Manor Houses facilitated different activities and events. Furthermore, the houses accommodated numerous people, including family, relatives, employees, servants and their guests. Their lifestyles were largely communal, as areas such as the

Great Hall A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages, and continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great ...

enforced the custom of dining and meetings and the

Solar Solar may refer to: Astronomy * Of or relating to the Sun ** Solar telescope, a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun ** A device that utilizes solar energy (e.g. "solar panels") ** Solar calendar, a calendar whose dates indicate t ...

intended for shared sleeping beds. During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Italian Renaissance Palazzo consisted of plentiful rooms of connectivity. Unlike the qualities and uses of the Manor Houses, most rooms of the palazzo contained no purpose, yet were given several doors. These doors adjoined rooms in which

Robin Evans Robin Evans (8 May 1944 – 19 February 1993) was an architect, teacher and historian. He grew up in Essex, England, attending British state schools where he met his wife, teacher Janet Bance - before studying Architecture at the Architectural As ...

describes as a "matrix of discrete but thoroughly interconnected chambers."Evans, Robin “Translations from Drawing to Building: Figures, Doors and Passages” London: Architectural Associations Publications 2005 The layout allowed occupants to freely walk room to room from one door to another, thus breaking the boundaries of

privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...

. :"Once inside it is necessary to pass from one room to the next, then to the next to traverse the building. Where passages and staircases are used, as inevitably they are, they nearly always connect just one space to another and never serve as general distributors of movement. Thus, despite the precise architectural containment offered by the addition of room upon room, the villa was, in terms of occupation, an open plan, relatively permeable to the numerous members of the household." Although very public, the open plan encouraged sociality and connectivity for all inhabitants. An early example of the segregation of rooms and consequent enhancement of privacy may be found in 1597 at the

Beaufort House Beaufort House is an 18th-century grade II listed house in Ham, near Richmond, Surrey. History Beaufort House was built in about 1780. It was originally the dower house to Ham House. In about 1855, a private Catholic girls school moved to Bea ...

built in Chelsea, London. It was designed by English architect

John Thorpe John Thorpe or Thorp (c.1565–1655?; fl.1570–1618) was an English architect. Life Little is known of his life, and his work is dubiously inferred, rather than accurately known, from a folio of drawings in the Sir John Soane's Museum, to whic ...

who wrote on his plans, "A Long Entry through all". The separation of the passageway from the room developed the function of the

corridor Corridor or The Corridor may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Corridor'' (1968 film), a 1968 Swedish drama film * ''The Corridor'' (1995 film), a 1995 Lithuanian drama film * ''The Corridor'' (2010 film), a 2010 Canadia ...

. This new extension was revolutionary at the time, allowing the integration of one door per room, in which all universally connected to the same corridor. English architect

Sir Roger Pratt Sir Roger Pratt (1620 – 20 February 1684) was an English gentleman-architect of the 17th century. He designed only five known buildings, but was highly influential, establishing a particularly English type of house, which was widely imitated. ...

states "the common way in the middle through the whole length of the house,

voids Void may refer to: Science, engineering, and technology * Void (astronomy), the spaces between galaxy filaments that contain no galaxies * Void (composites), a pore that remains unoccupied in a composite material * Void, synonym for vacuum, a s ...

the offices from one molesting the other by continual passing through them."Pratt, Sir Roger “Sir R. Pratt on Architecture” 1928 Social hierarchies within the 17th century were highly regarded, as architecture was able to epitomize the servants and the upper class. More privacy is offered to the

occupant Within the context of building construction and building codes, "occupancy" refers to the use, or intended use, of a building, or portion of a building, for the shelter or support of persons, animals or property. A closely related meaning is th ...

as Pratt further claims, "the ordinary servants may never publicly appear in passing to and fro for their occasions there." This social divide between rich and poor favored the physical integration of the corridor into housing by the 19th century. Sociologist Witold Rybczynski wrote, "the subdivision of the house into day and night uses, and into formal and informal areas, had begun." Rooms were changed from public to private as single entryways forced notions of entering a room with a specific purpose.

Industrial Revolution

Compared to the large scaled houses in England and the Renaissance, the 17th Century Dutch house was smaller, and was only inhabited by up to four to five members. This was because they embraced "self-reliance" in contrast to the dependence on servants, and a design for a lifestyle centered on the family. It was important for the Dutch to separate work from domesticity, as the home became an escape and a place of comfort. This way of living and the home has been noted as highly similar to the contemporary family and their dwellings. By the end of the 17th century, the house layout was transformed to become employment-free, enforcing these ideas for the future. This came in favour for the industrial revolution, gaining large-scale factory production and workers. The house layout of the Dutch and its functions are still relevant today. 988 High Street, Worsham house, circa 1880s - DPLA - ed69baf409a5eba5d1bff06c2d4dea17

988 High Street, Worsham house, circa 1880s - DPLA - ed69baf409a5eba5d1bff06c2d4dea17

19th and 20th centuries

In the American context, some professions, such as doctors, in the 19th and early 20th century typically operated out of the front room or parlor or had a two-room office on their property, which was detached from the house. By the mid-20th-century, the increase in high-tech equipment created a marked shift whereby the contemporary doctor typically worked from an office or

hospital A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...

. Technology and electronic systems has caused privacy issues and issues with segregating personal life from

remote work Remote work, also called work from home (WFH), work from anywhere, telework, remote job, mobile work, and distance work is an employment arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work, such as an office building, ware ...

. Technological advances of

surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as c ...

and communications allow insight of personal habits and private lives. As a result, the "private becomes ever more public, ndthe desire for a protective home life increases, fuelled by the very media that undermine it," writes Jonathan Hill. Work has been altered by the increase of communications. The "deluge of information", has expressed the efforts of work, conveniently gaining access inside the house. Although commuting is reduced, the desire to separate working and living remains apparent. On the other hand, some architects have designed homes in which eating, working and living are brought together.

Gallery

File:German House.jpg, Modern landhouse in Germany File:Casa dr. Ion Popescu, Str. Decebal nr. 9, Ploiești.JPG, The

Belle Époque The Belle Époque or La Belle Époque (; French for "Beautiful Epoch") is a period of French and European history, usually considered to begin around 1871–1880 and to end with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Occurring during the era ...

Ion Popescu House from Ploiești, Romania File:House in Poland.png, Modern suburban house in Poland File:Casas standard.png, Standard montevidean houses in Uruguay. File:Bhutanese Farmhouse Soe Yaksa.jpg, Farmhouse in Bhutan File:Cambo 169.jpg, Khmer house in Cambodia File:La cabaña de Alpina.jpg, Traditional house in

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

File:Rumah Minangkabau.jpg, Minangkabau traditional house in Indonesia File:Faza in Kenya's Coast Province.JPEG, Traditional houses in Faza, Kenya File:Banaue Philippines Batad-Rice-Terraces-03.jpg, Traditional village house in

Banaue Banaue (or alternatively spelled as Banawe), officially the Municipality of Banaue is a 4th class municipality in the province of Ifugao, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 20,652 people. It is widely known as t ...

, Philippines File:Brgule 006.jpg, House in Brgule, Serbia File:Varassaari5.JPG, A traditional Finnish house from the beginning of 20th century in Jyväskylä File:Gokayama Suganuma 五箇山菅沼地区 PA101516.jpg, Traditional house in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

File:দোতলা টিনের ঘর, ঢাকা.jpg, Traditional two-story tin shed house in Bangladesh File:Kamena kuca u Pokreveniku.jpg, Traditional stone house in Serbia File:Xaniyê Gundê Dîlan.JPG, A traditional Kurdish stone house File:Grachtenstad De Laak.jpg, Energy-efficient houses in Amersfoort, Netherlands File:NorthYorkHouse2.JPG, A house in Ontario, Canada File:Muurschildering Loevenhoutsedijk- Hoogstraat 90, Utrecht.jpg, A decorated house in Utrecht, Netherlands File:House (May 30, 2020).jpg, A single living house in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia File:Gentrification with an old and a new home side by side in Old East Dallas.jpg, Old and new houses side by side in Dallas File:House Darchula.jpg, Traditional house in Darchula District Nepal File:A standard house.jpg, A standard house in Ghana

Construction

In many parts of the world, houses are constructed using scavenged materials. In Manila's Payatas neighborhood, slum houses are often made of material sourced from a nearby garbage dump. In Dakar, it is common to see houses made of recycled materials standing atop a mixture of garbage and sand which serves as a foundation. The garbage-sand mixture is also used to protect the house from flooding. HouseStructure

In the United States, modern house construction techniques include

light-frame construction Framing, in construction, is the fitting together of pieces to give a structure support and shape. Framing materials are usually wood, engineered wood, or structural steel. The alternative to framed construction is generally called ''mass wal ...

(in areas with access to supplies of wood) and

adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...

or sometimes rammed-earth construction (in arid regions with scarce wood-resources). Some areas use brick almost exclusively, and quarried stone has long provided foundations and walls. To some extent, aluminum and steel have displaced some traditional building materials. Increasingly popular alternative construction materials include insulating concrete forms (foam forms filled with concrete), structural insulated panels (foam panels faced with oriented strand board or fiber cement), light-gauge steel, and

steel framing Steel frame is a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The developm ...

. More generally, people often build houses out of the nearest available material, and often tradition or culture govern construction-materials, so whole towns, areas, counties or even states/countries may be built out of one main type of material. For example, a large portion of American houses use wood, while most British and many European houses use stone, brick, or mud. Construction maison bambou

In the early 20th century, some house designers started using

prefabrication Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. The term is u ...

. Sears, Roebuck & Co. first marketed their

Sears Catalog Home Sears Modern Homes were catalog and kit houses sold primarily through mail order by Sears, Roebuck and Co., an American retailer. From 1908 to 1942, Sears sold more than 70,000 of these houses in North America, by the company's count. Sears Mo ...

s to the general public in 1908. Prefab techniques became popular after World War II. First small inside rooms framing, then later, whole walls were prefabricated and carried to the construction site. The original impetus was to use the labor force inside a shelter during inclement weather. More recently, builders have begun to collaborate with

structural engineer Structural engineers analyze, design, plan, and research structural components and structural systems to achieve design goals and ensure the safety and comfort of users or occupants. Their work takes account mainly of safety, technical, economic ...

s who use

finite element analysis The finite element method (FEM) is a popular method for numerically solving differential equations arising in engineering and mathematical modeling. Typical problem areas of interest include the traditional fields of structural analysis, heat ...

to design prefabricated steel-framed homes with known resistance to high wind loads and seismic forces. These newer products provide labor savings, more consistent quality, and possibly accelerated construction processes. Lesser-used construction methods have gained (or regained) popularity in recent years. Though not in wide use, these methods frequently appeal to homeowners who may become actively involved in the construction process. They include: * Hempcrete construction * Cordwood construction * Geodesic domes * Straw-bale construction * Wattle and daub * *

Framing (construction) Framing, in construction, is the fitting together of pieces to give a structure support and shape. Framing materials are usually wood, engineered wood, or structural steel. The alternative to framed construction is generally called ''mass wall ...

Passivhaus thermogram gedaemmt ungedaemmt

In the developed world, energy-conservation has grown in importance in house design. Housing produces a major proportion of

carbon emissions Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and larg ...

(studies have show that it is 30% of the total in the United Kingdom). Development of a number of low-energy building types and techniques continues. They include the

zero-energy house A Zero Energy Building (ZEB), also known as a Net Zero Energy (NZE) building, is a building with net zero energy consumption, meaning the total amount of energy used by the building on an annual basis is equal to the amount of renewable energy ...

, the

passive solar house In passive solar building design, windows, walls, and floors are made to collect, store, reflect, and distribute solar energy, in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer. This is called passive solar design because, unl ...

, the

autonomous buildings An autonomous building is a building designed to be operated independently from infrastructural support services such as the electric power grid, gas grid, municipal water systems, sewage treatment systems, storm drains, communication services, ...

, the superinsulated and houses built to the ''

Passivhaus "Passive house" (german: Passivhaus) is a voluntary standard for energy efficiency in a building, which reduces the building's ecological footprint. It results in ultra-low energy buildings that require little energy for space heating or coo ...

'' standard.

Legal issues

Buildings with historical importance have legal restrictions. New houses in the UK are not covered by the Sale of Goods Act. When purchasing a new house the buyer has different legal protection than when buying other products. New houses in the UK are covered by a

National House Building Council The National House Building Council, usually known as the NHBC, states its primary purpose as raising the construction standards of new homes in the United Kingdom (UK), and providing consumer protection for homebuyers through its 10-year Buildm ...

guarantee.

Identification and symbolism

With the growth of dense settlement, humans designed ways of identifying houses and

parcels Parcels are an Australian electropop five-piece formed in Byron Bay, Australia, in 2014. Today they are based in Berlin, Germany. The band's line-up is composed of keyboardist Louie Swain, keyboardist/guitarist Patrick Hetherington, bassist Noa ...

of land. Individual houses sometimes acquire proper names, and those names may acquire in their turn considerable emotional connotations. For example, the house of '' Howards End'' or the castle of '' Brideshead Revisited''. A more systematic and general approach to identifying houses may use various methods of house numbering. Houses may express the circumstances or opinions of their builders or their inhabitants. Thus, a vast and elaborate house may serve as a sign of conspicuous wealth whereas a low-profile house built of recycled materials may indicate support of energy conservation. Houses of particular historical significance (former residences of the famous, for example, or even just very old houses) may gain a protected status in town planning as examples of built

heritage Heritage may refer to: History and society * A heritage asset is a preexisting thing of value today ** Cultural heritage is created by humans ** Natural heritage is not * Heritage language Biology * Heredity, biological inheritance of physical c ...

or of streetscape. Commemorative plaques may mark such structures. Home ownership provides a common measure of

prosperity Prosperity is the flourishing, thriving, good fortune and successful social status. Prosperity often produces profuse wealth including other factors which can be profusely wealthy in all degrees, such as happiness and health. Competing notion ...

in economics. Contrast the importance of house-destruction, tent dwelling and house rebuilding in the wake of many

natural disaster A natural disaster is "the negative impact following an actual occurrence of natural hazard in the event that it significantly harms a community". A natural disaster can cause loss of life or damage property, and typically leaves some econ ...

References

External links

Housing through the centuries
animation by '' The Atlantic'' {{Authority control Structural system Housing Home