A house is a single-unit residential
building
A building or edifice is an enclosed Structure#Load-bearing, structure with a roof, walls and window, windows, usually standing permanently in one place, such as a house or factory. Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and functions, a ...
. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary
hut
A hut is a small dwelling, which may be constructed of various local materials. Huts are a type of vernacular architecture because they are built of readily available materials such as wood, snow, stone, grass, palm leaves, branches, clay, hid ...
to a complex structure of
wood
Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin t ...
,
masonry
Masonry is the craft of building a structure with brick, stone, or similar material, including mortar plastering which are often laid in, bound, and pasted together by mortar (masonry), mortar. The term ''masonry'' can also refer to the buildin ...
,
concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...
or other material, outfitted with
plumbing
Plumbing is any system that conveys fluids for a wide range of applications. Plumbing uses piping, pipes, valves, piping and plumbing fitting, plumbing fixtures, Storage tank, tanks, and other apparatuses to convey fluids. HVAC, Heating and co ...
, 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. H ...
systems.
[Schoenauer, Norbert (2000). ''6,000 Years of Housing'' (rev. ed.) (New York: W.W. Norton & Company).] Houses use a range of different
roof
A roof (: roofs or rooves) is the top covering of a building, including all materials and constructions necessary to support it on the walls of the building or on uprights, providing protection against rain, snow, sunlight, extremes of tempera ...
ing systems to keep precipitation such as rain from getting into the dwelling space. Houses generally 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 securit ...
s or
lock
Lock(s) or Locked may refer to:
Common meanings
*Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance
*Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal
Arts and entertainme ...
s to secure the dwelling space and protect its inhabitants and contents from
burglar
Burglary, also called breaking and entering (B&E) or housebreaking, is a property crime involving trespass to land, the illegal entry into a building or other area without permission, typically with the intention of committing a further criminal ...
s 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 characterized by its usage for sleeping. A typical Western world, western bedroom contains as bedroom furniture one or two beds, a clothes closet, and bedsid ...
s and
bathroom
A bathroom is a room in which people wash their bodies or parts thereof. It can contain one or more of the following plumbing fixtures: a shower, a bathtub, a bidet, and a sink (also known as a wash basin in the United Kingdom). A toilet is al ...
s, a
kitchen
A kitchen is a room (architecture), 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 Kitchen stove, stove, a sink ...
or cooking area, and a
living room
In Western architecture, a living room, also called a lounge room (Australian English), lounge (British English), sitting room (British English), or drawing room, is a room for relaxing and socializing in a Dwelling, residential house or apa ...
. A house may have a separate
dining room
A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually next to the kitchen for convenience in serving, though in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level. Historically the dining room is furnished with ...
, or the eating area may be integrated into the
kitchen
A kitchen is a room (architecture), 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 Kitchen stove, stove, a sink ...
or another room. Some large houses in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
have a
recreation room
A recreation room (also known as a rec room, rumpus room, play room, playroom, games room, or ruckus room) is a room (architecture), room used for a variety of purposes, such as Party, parties, Game, games and other everyday or casual activities. ...
. 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
A household consists of one or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is im ...
. Most commonly, a household is a
family
Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
unit of some kind, although households may also have other
social groups
In the social sciences, a social group is defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity. Regardless, social groups come in a myriad of sizes and varieties. Fo ...
, 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 dorm-mate, suite-mate, housemate, or flatmate ("flat": the usual term in Brit ...
s or, in a
rooming house
A rooming house, also called a "multi-tenant house", is a "dwelling with multiple Lease-by-room, rooms rented out individually", in which the tenants share kitchen and often bathroom facilities. Rooming houses are often used as housing for low-i ...
, unconnected individuals, that typically use a house as their
home
A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or more human occupants, and sometimes various companion animals. Homes provide sheltered spaces, for instance rooms, where domestic activity can be p ...
. Some houses only have a dwelling space for one family or similar-sized group; larger houses called
townhouse
A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of Terraced house, terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type o ...
s or
row house
A terrace, terraced house (British English, UK), or townhouse (American English, US) is a type of medium-density housing which first started in 16th century Europe with a row of joined houses party wall, sharing side walls. In the United States ...
s may contain numerous family dwellings in the same structure. A house may be accompanied by outbuildings, such as a
garage
A garage is a covered structure built for the purpose of parking, storing, protecting, maintaining, and/or repairing vehicles. Specific applications include:
*Garage (residential), a building or part of a building for storing one or more vehicl ...
for vehicles or a
shed
A shed is typically a simple, single-storey (though some sheds may have two or more stories and or a loft) roofed structure, often used for storage, for hobby, hobbies, or as a workshop, and typically serving as outbuilding, such as in a bac ...
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 (land), yard at the back of a house, common in suburban developments in the Western world.
It is typically a residential garden located at the ...
, 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 lawn. ...
or both, which serve as additional areas where inhabitants can relax, eat, or exercise.
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 c ...
'' derives directly from the Old English word , meaning "dwelling, shelter, home, house," which in turn derives from
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
''husan'' (reconstructed by etymological analysis) which is of unknown origin. The term house itself gave rise to the letter 'B' through an early
Proto-Semitic
Proto-Semitic is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Semitic languages. There is no consensus regarding the location of the linguistic homeland for Proto-Semitic: scholars hypothesize that it may have originated in the Levant, the Sahara, ...
hieroglyphic
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters. ...
symbol depicting a house. The symbol was called
"bayt", "bet" or "beth" in various related languages, and became ''
beta
Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...
'', the Greek letter, before it was used by the Romans. in Arabic means house, while in Maltese refers to the roof of the house.
Elements
Layout

Ideally,
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
s of houses design
room
In a building or 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. The entrance connects it to either a passageway, another room, or the outdoors. The space is ...
s to meet the needs of the people who will live in the house.
Feng shui
Feng shui ( or ), sometimes called Chinese geomancy, is a traditional form of geomancy that originated in ancient China and claims to use energy forces to harmonize individuals with their surrounding environment. The term ''feng shui'' mean ...
, originally a
Chinese
Chinese may refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China.
**'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...
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 (; abbreviated sq ft, sf, or ft2; also denoted by '2 and ⏍) is an imperial unit and U.S. customary unit (non- SI, non-metric) of area, used mainly in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pa ...
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.

Humans often build houses for domestic or
wild animals
Wildlife refers to undomesticated animals and uncultivated plant species which can exist in their natural habitat, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also ...
, often resembling smaller versions of human domiciles.
Familiar animal houses built by humans include
birdhouse
A nest box, also spelled nestbox, is a man-made enclosure provided for animals to nest in. Nest boxes are most frequently utilized for birds, in which case they are also called birdhouses or a birdbox/bird box, but some mammals such as bats ma ...
s,
hen houses and
dog houses, while housed agricultural animals more often live in
barn
A barn is an agricultural building usually on farms and used for various purposes. In North America, a barn refers to structures that house livestock, including cattle and horses, as well as equipment and fodder, and often grain.Allen G ...
s and
stable
A stable is a building in which working animals are kept, especially horses or oxen. The building is usually divided into stalls, and may include storage for equipment and feed.
Styles
There are many different types of stables in use tod ...
s.
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. It is also known as a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because they fill the space between the ceiling of a building's t ...
*
Basement
A basement is any Storey, floor of a building that is not above the grade plane. Especially in residential buildings, it often is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the Furnace (house heating), furnace, water heating, ...
/
cellar
*
Bathroom
A bathroom is a room in which people wash their bodies or parts thereof. It can contain one or more of the following plumbing fixtures: a shower, a bathtub, a bidet, and a sink (also known as a wash basin in the United Kingdom). A toilet is al ...
*
Bedroom
A bedroom or bedchamber is a room situated within a residential or accommodation unit characterized by its usage for sleeping. A typical Western world, western bedroom contains as bedroom furniture one or two beds, a clothes closet, and bedsid ...
(or
nursery)
*
Box-room / storage room
*
Conservatory
*
Dining room
A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually next to the kitchen for convenience in serving, though in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level. Historically the dining room is furnished with ...
*
Family room
A family room is an informal, all-purpose room in a house. The family room is designed to be a place where family and guests gather for group recreation like talking, reading, watching TV, and other family activities. Often, the family room is loc ...
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
A fireplace or hearth is a structure made of brick, stone or metal designed to contain a fire. Fireplaces are used for the relaxing ambiance they create and for heating a room. Modern fireplaces vary in heat efficiency, depending on the design.
...
*
Foyer
A lobby is a room in a building used for entry from the outside. Sometimes referred to as a foyer, entryway, reception area or entrance hall, it is often a large room or complex of rooms (in a theatre, opera house, concert hall, showroom, cine ...
*
Front room
In Western architecture, a living room, also called a lounge room (Australian English), lounge (British English), sitting room (British English), or drawing room, is a room for relaxing and socializing in a residential house or apartment. Su ...
*
Garage
A garage is a covered structure built for the purpose of parking, storing, protecting, maintaining, and/or repairing vehicles. Specific applications include:
*Garage (residential), a building or part of a building for storing one or more vehicl ...
*
Hallway
A hallway (also passage, passageway, corridor or hall) is an interior space in a building that is used to connect other rooms. Hallways are generally long and narrow.
Hallways must be sufficiently wide to ensure buildings can be evacuated duri ...
/
passage /
vestibule
*
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 a horizontal hearthstone and often enclosed to varying degrees by any combination of reredos (a low, partial ...
*
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 1000 workers.
In New Zealand, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBI ...
or
study
Study or studies may refer to:
General
* Education
**Higher education
* Clinical trial
* Experiment
* Field of study
* Observational study
* Scientific study
* Research
* Study skills, abilities and approaches applied to learning
Other
* Study ...
*
Kitchen
A kitchen is a room (architecture), 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 Kitchen stove, stove, a sink ...
*
Larder
A larder is a cool area for storing food prior to use. Originally, it was where raw meat was larded—covered in fat—to be preserved. This method slowed spoilage by sealing out air, bacteria, and moisture. In colder larders (4°C/40°F or lower) ...
*
Laundry room
A laundry room or utility room is a room (architecture), room where clothes are washed, and sometimes also drying room, dried. In a modern home, laundry rooms are often equipped with an automatic washing machine and clothes dryer, and often a l ...
*
Library
A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...
*
Living room
In Western architecture, a living room, also called a lounge room (Australian English), lounge (British English), sitting room (British English), or drawing room, is a room for relaxing and socializing in a Dwelling, residential house or apa ...
*
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
A pantry is a room or cupboard where beverages, food, (sometimes) dishes, household cleaning products, linens or provisions are stored within a home or office. Food and beverage pantries serve in an ancillary capacity to the kitchen.
Etymol ...
*
Parlour
A parlour (or parlor) is a reception room or public space. In medieval Christian Europe, the "outer parlour" was the room where the monks or nuns conducted business with those outside the monastery and the "inner parlour" was used for necessar ...
*
Porch
A porch (; , ) is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance to a building. A porch is placed in front of the façade of a building it commands, and forms a low front. Alternatively, it may be a vestibule (architecture), vestibule (a s ...
*
Recreation room
A recreation room (also known as a rec room, rumpus room, play room, playroom, games room, or ruckus room) is a room (architecture), room used for a variety of purposes, such as Party, parties, Game, games and other everyday or casual activities. ...
/
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 m ...
/
television
Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
room
*
Shrine
A shrine ( "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred space">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...: ''escri ...
s to serve the religious functions associated with a family
*
Stairwell
A stairwell or stair room is a room in a building where a stair is located, and is used to connect walkways between floors so that one can move in height. Collectively, a set of stairs and a stairwell is referred to as a staircase or stairway. ...
*
Sunroom
A sunroom, also frequently called a solarium (and sometimes a "Florida room", "garden conservatory", "garden room", " patio room", "sun parlor", "sun porch", "three season room" or " winter garden"), is a room that permits abundant daylight a ...
*
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 and associated activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built abo ...
*
Window
A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent ma ...
*
Workshop
Beginning with the Industrial Revolution era, a workshop may be a room, rooms or building which provides both the area and tools (or machinery) that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods. Workshops were the only ...
*
Utility room
A utility room is a room where equipment not used in day-to-day activities is kept. "Utility" refers to an item which is designed for usefulness or practical use, so in turn most of the items kept in this room have functional attributes. A utility ...
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
Tell Madhur (also Madhhur) is a Tell (archaeology), tell, or archaeological settlement mound, in Diyala Governorate (Iraq). The site was excavated due to it being flooded by the Lake Hamrin, reservoir created by the Hemrin Dam, Hamrin Dam. Madhur ...
in
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
.
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of Roman civilization
*Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...
architect
Vitruvius
Vitruvius ( ; ; –70 BC – after ) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work titled . As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissan ...
' theories have claimed the first form of
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 construction, constructi ...
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. ...
.
[ Hill, Jonathan, "Immaterial Architecture", New York: ]Routledge
Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...
, 2006.
Middle Ages
In the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
, the
Manor Houses
A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...
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. It continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great cha ...
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
A palace is a large residence, often serving as a royal residence or the home for a head of state or another high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome whi ...
contained no purpose, yet were given several doors. These doors adjoined rooms in which
Robin Evans 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
A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with details of timing and resources, used to achieve an Goal, objective to do something. It is commonly understood as a modal logic, temporal set (mathematics), set of intended actions through wh ...
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 built in
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area in West London, England, due south-west of Kilometre zero#Great Britain, Charing Cross by approximately . It lies on the north bank of the River Thames and for postal purposes is part of the SW postcode area, south-western p ...
. 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. 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 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, ...
the offices from one molesting the other by continual passing through them."
[Pratt, Sir Roger "Sir R. Pratt on Architecture" 1928] Social hierarchies
Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (social and political). It ...
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 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 Dutch Golden Age, 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.
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.
19th and 20th centuries
In the American context, some professions, such as doctors, in the 19th and early 20th centuries 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 Doctor's office, office or hospital.
Technology and electronic systems have caused privacy issues and issues with segregating personal life from remote work. Technological advances in surveillance and Internet, communications allow insight into personal habits and private lives.
As a result, the "private becomes ever more public, [and] the desire for a protective home life increases, fuelled by the very media that undermine it," writes Jonathan Hill (architect), 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 land house in Germany
File:Casa dr. Ion Popescu, Str. Decebal nr. 9, Ploiești.JPG, The Belle Époque Ion Popescu House from Ploiești, Romania
File:House in Poland.png, Modern suburban house in Poland
File:Casas standard.png, Casa chorizo, 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
File:Rumah Minangkabau.jpg, Minangkabau people, 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, Philippines
File:Brgule 006.jpg, House in Brgule, Serbia
File:Varassaari5.JPG, A traditional Finland, 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
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 Kurds, 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.

In the United States, modern house construction techniques include Framing (construction), light-frame construction (in areas with access to supplies of wood) and adobe or sometimes Rammed earth, 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), Cold-formed steel, light-gauge steel, and Steel frame, steel framing. 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.

In the early 20th century, some house designers started using prefabrication. Sears, Roebuck & Co. first marketed their Sears Catalog Homes 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, 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 engineers who use finite element analysis to design prefabricated steel-framed homes with known resistance to high Wind engineering, wind loads and Earthquake engineering, 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, Hempcrete construction
* Cordwood construction
* Geodesic domes
* Straw-bale construction
* Wattle and daub
*
* Framing (construction)

In the developed world, energy conservation, energy-conservation has grown in importance in house design. Housing produces a major proportion of carbon emissions (studies have shown that it is Energy efficiency in British housing, 30% of the total in the United Kingdom).
Development of a number of :low-energy building, low-energy building types and techniques continues. They include the zero-energy house, the passive solar house, the autonomous buildings, the Superinsulation, super insulated houses and houses built to the ''Passive house, Passivhaus'' 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 guarantee.
Identification and symbolism
With the growth of dense settlement, humans designed ways of identifying houses and Land lot, parcels of land. Individual houses sometimes acquire proper names, and those names may acquire in their turn considerable emotional connotations. 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 Cultural heritage, heritage or of streetscape. Commemorative plaques may mark such structures. Home ownership provides a common measure of prosperity in economics. Contrast the importance of house-destruction, tent dwelling and house rebuilding in the wake of many natural disasters.
See also
Building
* House-building
* Index of construction articles
Functions
* Building science
* Mixed-use development
* Visitability
Types
* Boarding house
* Earth sheltering
* Home automation
* Housing estate
* Housing in Japan
* Hurricane-proof house
* Lodging
* Lustron house
* Mobile home
* Modular home
* Slope house
* Summer house
* Tiny house
Economics
* Affordable housing
** Residential building series
* Real estate bubble
** United States housing bubble
* Housing tenure
* Show house
Miscellaneous
* Domestic robot
* Homelessness
* Home network
* Housewarming party
* Squatting
Institutions
* U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
** HUD USER
** Regulatory Barriers Clearinghouse
Lists
* List of American houses
* List of house styles
* List of house types
* List of real estate topics
* Open-air museum
References
External links
Housing through the centuries animation by ''The Atlantic''
{{Authority control
Houses,
Structural system
Housing
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