List of house types
Types of houses around the world
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/19/Puitelamu_Tartus_Oa_1.jpg/220px-Puitelamu_Tartus_Oa_1.jpg)
This is a list of house types . Houses can be built in a large variety of configurations. A basic division is between free-standing or single-family detached homes and various types of attached or multi-family residential dwellings. Both may vary greatly in scale and the amount of accommodation provided.
By layout
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Single_Cell_House_Type.jpg/110px-Single_Cell_House_Type.jpg)
Single pen , single cell , or Hall house : a one-room house [2]
- Wealden hall house : a type of vernacular medieval timber-framed yeoman 's hall house traditional in the south east of England
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/Double_Cell_House_Type.jpg/110px-Double_Cell_House_Type.jpg)
Double pen or double cell : a two-room house [3]
- Saddlebag : a two-room house with a central chimney and one or two front doors [4]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Hall-Parlor_House_Type.jpg/110px-Hall-Parlor_House_Type.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Central_Passage_House_Type.jpg/110px-Central_Passage_House_Type.jpg)
Central-passage or central hallway\corridor : a three-room house, with a central hallway or passage running front-to-back between the two rooms on either side of the house [6]
- Dogtrot house : divided house with an open, roofed breezeway between the two sections [7]
Hut
A hut is a dwelling of relatively simple construction, usually one room and one story in height. The design and materials of huts vary widely around the world.
-
Roundhouse : a house built with a circular plan
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Broch : a Scottish roundhouse
-
Trullo : a traditional Apulian stone dwelling with a conical roof
Bungalow
Bungalow is a common term applied to a low one-story house with a shallow-pitched roof (in some locations, dormered varieties are referred to as 1.5-story, such as the chalet bungalow in the United Kingdom). [11]
Cottage
A cottage is a small house, usually one or two story in height, although the term is sometimes applied to larger structures.
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Cape Cod-style house or Cape: a style of a double-pile one-story cottage; low, broad with a steep side-gable roof to which dormers are often added to create a second story (in some locations, referred to as 1.5-story)
-
Dacha : cottage-type house in Russia and former union republics of the Soviet Union
-
Izba : a traditional Russian wooden country house
-
Ontario Cottage : a one- or one-and-a-half-story house with a symmetrical rectangular floor plan and a gable centred over the door, popular in small-town Ontario during the 19th century
Ranch
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/BrickRanch.jpg/220px-BrickRanch.jpg)
A ranch-style house or rambler is one-story, low to the ground, with a low-pitched roof, usually rectangular, L- or U-shaped with deep overhanging eaves . [12] Ranch styles include:
- California ranch : the "original" ranch style, developed in the United States in the early 20th century, before World War II [13]
- Tract ranch : a post-World War II style of ranch that was smaller and less ornate than the original, mass-produced in housing developments, usually without basements [13]
- Suburban ranch : a modern style of ranch that retains many of the characteristics of the original but is larger, with modern amenities [13]
I-house
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/Moss_Hill_House.jpg/220px-Moss_Hill_House.jpg)
An I-house is a two or three-story house that is one room deep with a double-pen, hall-parlor, central-hall or saddlebag layout. [14]
Gablefront
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Traditional_thatched_house_%28palheiro%29%2C_Santana%2C_Madeira%2C_Portugal.jpg/220px-Traditional_thatched_house_%28palheiro%29%2C_Santana%2C_Madeira%2C_Portugal.jpg)
A gablefront house or gablefront cottage has a gable roof that faces its street or avenue , as in the novel The House of Seven Gables .
- A-frame : so-called because the steep roofline, reaching to or near the ground, makes the gable ends resemble a capital letter A.
- Chalet : a gablefront house built into a mountainside with a wide sloping roof
- Charleston single house : originating in Charleston, South Carolina , a narrow house with its shoulder to the street and front door on the side.
Split-level
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d8/Split-Level_Houses_in_Gang_Mills_05.jpg/220px-Split-Level_Houses_in_Gang_Mills_05.jpg)
Split-level house is a design of house that was commonly built during the 1950s and 1960s. It has two nearly equal sections that are located on two different levels, with a short stairway in the corridor connecting them.
Tower
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2a/Vao_tornlinnus_14-05-2013.jpg/220px-Vao_tornlinnus_14-05-2013.jpg)
A tower house is a compact two or more story house, often fortified.
- Irish tower houses were often surrounded by defensive walls called bawns
- Kulla : an Albanian tower house
- Peel tower or Pele tower : fortified tower houses in England and Scotland used as keeps or houses
- Vainakh tower : a tower house found in Chechenya and Ingushetia that reached up to four stories tall and were used for residential or military purposes, or both
- Welsh tower houses : built mostly in the 14th and 15th centuries
Longhouse
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Borg_Vestv%C3%A5g%C3%B8y_LC0165.jpg/220px-Borg_Vestv%C3%A5g%C3%B8y_LC0165.jpg)
A longhouse is historical house type typically for family groups.
-
Geestharden house
: one of the three basic house types in
Schleswig-Holstein
region of Germany
- Uthland-Frisian house : a sub type of Geestharden house of northwest Germany and Denmark
- Longère : a long and narrow house in rural Normandy and Brittany
Housebarn
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Adelboden080711_42_Frutighaus-neu.jpg/220px-Adelboden080711_42_Frutighaus-neu.jpg)
A housebarn is a combined house and barn.
- Barndominium : a type of house that includes living space attached to either a workshop or a barn, typically for horses , or a large vehicle such as a recreational vehicle or a large recreational boat
- Byre-dwelling : farmhouse with people and livestock under one roof
- Connected farm : type of farmhouse common in New England
- Frutighaus : a type of barnhouse originating in the Frutigland region of Switzerland.
Other house types
-
Courtyard house
- Riad : a type of courtyard house found in Morocco
- Siheyuan , Sanheyuan : a type of courtyard house found in China
- Snout house : a house with the garage door being the closest part of the dwelling to the street.
- Octagon house : a house of symmetrical octagonal floor plan, popularized briefly during the 19th century by Orson Squire Fowler
- Stilt house : is a house built on stilts above a body of water or the ground (usually in swampy areas prone to flooding).
- Villa : a large house which one might retreat to in the country. Villa can also refer to a freestanding comfortable-sized house, on a large block, generally found in the suburbs, and in Victorian terraced housing , a house larger than the average byelaw terraced house , often having double street frontage .
-
Mansion
: a very large, luxurious house, typically associated with exceptional wealth or aristocracy, usually of more than one story, on a very large block of land or estate.
Mansions usually will have many more rooms and bedrooms than a typical single-family home, including specialty rooms, such as a library, study, conservatory , theater, greenhouse , infinity pool, bowling alley , or server room. - Palace : the residence of a high ranking government official or the country's ruler .
- Castle : a heavily fortified medieval dwelling or a house styled after medieval castles. Usually with towers , crenellations , a stone exterior, get
By construction method or materials
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/Taos_Pueblo_2017-05-05.jpg/220px-Taos_Pueblo_2017-05-05.jpg)
- Airey house : a type of low-cost house that was developed in the United Kingdom during the 1940s by Sir Edwin Airey , and then widely constructed between 1945 and 1960 to provide housing for soldiers, sailors, and airmen who had returned home from World War II . These are recognizable by their precast concrete columns and by their walls made of precast "ship-lap" concrete panels.
- Assam-type House : an earthquake-resistant house type commonly found in the northeastern states of India
- Bastle house : a fortified farmhouse found in England and Scotland
- Castle : primarily a defensive structure/dwelling built during the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages , and also from the 18th century to today.
- Converted barn : an old barn converted into a house or other use.
-
Earth sheltered
: houses using
dirt
("earth") piled against it exterior walls for thermal mass, which reduces heat flow into or out of the house, maintaining a more steady indoor
temperature
- Pit-house : a prehistoric house type used on many continents and of many styles, partially sunken into the ground.
- Rammed earth
- Sod house
- Earthbag home
- Souterrain : an earthen dwelling typically deriving from Neolithic Age or Bronze Age times.
- Underground home : a type of dwelling dug and constructed underground. Ex. A Rammed-Earth Style House
- Yaodong : a dugout used as an abode or shelter in northern China, especially on the Loess Plateau
- Wattle and daub
- Adobe : a type of mudbrick house made of dirt and straw with mud used as mortar. Found throughout the world, in particular Spain, North Africa, the Middle East and the Americas.
- Igloo : an Inuit , Yup'ik , and Aleut seasonal or emergency shelter that was made of knife-sliced blocks of packed snow and/or ice in the Arctic regions of Alaska , Canada, Greenland, and Siberian Russia.
-
Kit house
: a type of pre-fabricated house made of pre-cut, numbered pieces of lumber.
- Sears Catalog Home : an owner-built "kit" houses that were sold by the Sears, Roebuck and Co. corporation via catalog orders from 1906 to 1940.
- Laneway house : a type of Canadian house that is constructed behind a normal single-family home that opens onto a back lane
- Log home , Log cabin : a house built by American, Canadian, and Russian frontiersmen and their families which was built of solid, unsquared wooden logs and later as a well crafted style of dwelling
- Plank house : a general term for houses built using planks in a variety of ways
- Pole house : a timber house in which a set of vertical poles carry the load of all of its suspended floors and roof, allowing all of its walls to be non-load-bearing.
-
Prefabricated house
: a house whose main structural sections were manufactured in a
factory
, and then transported to their final building site to be assembled upon a
concrete
foundation, which had to be poured locally.
- Manufactured house : a prefabricated house that is assembled on the permanent site on which it will sit.
- Modular home : a prefabricated house that consists of repeated sections called modules.
- Lustron house : a type of prefabricated house
- Stilt houses or Pile dwellings : houses raised on stilts over the surface of the soil or a body of water.
- Tree house : a house built among the branches or around the trunk of one or more mature trees and does not rest on the ground.
- Upper Lusatian house or Umgebinde : combined log and timber-frame construction in Germany-Czech Republic-Poland region
- Wimpey no-fines house : a low-cost semi-attached or terraced houses built in the United Kingdom from the 1940s onwards using concrete without fine aggregates ("no-fine")
Single-family attached
- Two-family or duplex : two living units, either attached side by side and sharing a common wall (in some countries, called semi-detached ) or stacked one atop the other (in some countries, called a double-decker )
- Three-family or triplex : three living units, either attached side by side and sharing common walls, or stacked (in some countries, called a three-decker or triple-decker )
- Four-family or quadplex or quad : four living units, typically with two units on the first floor and two on the second, or side-by-side
-
Townhouse
,
terraced house
, or
rowhouse
: common terms for single-family attached housing, whose precise meaning varies by location, often connecting a series of living units arranged side-by-side sharing common walls (not to be confused with the English term for an aristocratic mansion,
townhouse (Great Britain)
)
- Linked house : side-by-side attached houses that appear detached above-ground but are attached at the foundation below-ground
- Linked semi-detached : side-by-side attached houses with garages in between them, sharing basement and garage walls
- Mews property : an urban stable -block that has often been converted into residential properties. The houses may have been converted into ground floor garages with a small flat above which used to house the ostler or just a garage with no living quarters.
- Patio house : townhouses that share a patio
- Weavers' cottage : townhouses with attached workshops for weavers
Movable dwellings
- Chattel house : a small wooden house occupied by working-class people on Barbados. Originally relocatable; personal chattel (property) rather than fixed real property .
- Mobile home , park home , or trailer home : a prefabricated house that is manufactured off-site and moved by trailer to its final location (but not intended to be towed regularly by a vehicle)
![Photograph of a travel trailer or camper](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/Travel_trailer_in_Mo%C5%84ki.jpg/220px-Travel_trailer_in_Mo%C5%84ki.jpg)
-
Recreational vehicle
or
RV
: a motor vehicle or trailer that can be used for habitation
- Travel trailer , camper or caravan : a trailer designed to be used as a residence (usually temporarily), which must be towed regularly by a vehicle and cannot move under its own power
- Tiny house : a dwelling, usually built on a trailer or barge, that is 500 square feet (46 m 2 ) or smaller, built to look like a small house and suitable for long-term habitation
- Houseboat includes float houses : a boat designed to be primarily used as a residence
- Tent : a temporary, movable dwelling usually constructed with fabric covering a frame of lightweight wood or other locally-available material
See also
- Cohousing
- Company town
- City block
- Home
- House
- Gated community
- Intentional community
- List of house styles
- Outbuilding
- Planned unit development
- Real estate
- Jerome Soltan
- Spite house , which may or may not be attached to other structures
- Sustainable design
- Timeshare , form of vacation property
- Total institution
Notes
- ↑ Harris 2006 , p. 892, Single-pile house: A house that is only one room deep"
- ↑ Cloues 2005 , Single Pen: "A one-room house, usually gable-roofed with an end chimney"; Harris 2006 , p. 490, Hall: "4. A small, relatively primitive dwelling having a one-room plan."
- ↑ Cloues 2005 , Double Pen: "A two-room house with two front doors, usually gable-roofed with end chimneys"
- ↑ Cloues 2005 , Saddlebag: "A two-room house with a central chimney and one or two front doors, usually gable-roofed"
- ↑ Cloues 2005 , Hall-Parlor: "A two-room house with unequal-sized rooms and one front door, usually gable-roofed"
- ↑ Cloues 2005 , Central Hallway: "A two-room house with a central hall and centered front door, usually gable-roofed with end chimneys"
- ↑ Cloues 2005 , Dogtrot: "A two-room house with an open center passage"
- ↑ Harris 2006 , p. 328, Double-pile house: A house that is two rooms deep"
- ↑ Cloues 2005 , Shotgun: "A one-room wide house, two or more rooms deep, without a hallway; gable- or hip-roofed"
- ↑ Harris 2006 , pp. 887–888, Side-hall plan, side passage plan: "A floor plan of a house having a corridor that runs from the front to the back of the house along one exterior wall; all rooms are located on the same side of the corridor."
- ↑ Cloues 2005 , Bungalow: "A house relatively long and low in proportion, rectangular in plan, with an irregular interior floor plan, featuring integral porches and low-pitched roofs"
- ↑ Cloues , Ranch House: "A house with long, low proportions and extended rectangular plan, sometimes with L- or T-shaped extensions at one or both ends, rooms clustered with family living spaces at one end and bedrooms at the other end, often with integral carport or garage; low gabled or hipped roof" sfnm error: no target: CITEREFCloues ( help ) ; Poore 2018 ; Salant 2006 .
- 1 2 3 Poore 2018 ; Salant 2006 .
- ↑ Cloues 2005 , I-House: "A one-room-deep house with a distinctive tall, narrow profile; floor plans include central hallway, hall-parlor, double-pen, and saddlebag; often with rear shed or porch"
- 1 2 3 Nostrand 2018 , pp. 102–104.
- 1 2 McAlester 2013 , pp. 613–614. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMcAlester2013 ( help )
References
- Cloues, Richard (2005-03-26). "House Types" . New Georgia Encyclopedia (2013-08-22 ed.). Georgia Humanities and the University of Georgia Press . Retrieved 2018-12-28 .
- Harris, Cyril M. (2006). Dictionary of Architectures & Construction (4th ed.). NY: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-158901-5 .
- McAlester, Virginia; McAlester, Arcie Lee (2013). A Field Guide to American Houses: The Definitive Guide to Identifying and Understanding America's Domestic Architecture . Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9781400043590 .
- Nostrand, Richard L. (2018-01-19). The Making of America's Culture Regions . Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781538103975 .
- Poore, Patricia (2018-06-05). "The California Ranch" . Old House Journal Magazine . Archived from the original on 2019-01-01 . Retrieved 2019-01-01 .
- Salant, Katherine (2006-12-30). "The Ranch, an Architectural Archetype Forged on the Frontier" . The Washington Post . Archived from the original on 2019-01-01 . Retrieved 2012-12-31 .
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- House Images
- Architectural Housing Styles at Old House Web
- Bilingual Glossary of House types (in English and Spanish)
- A comprehensive summary of common residential architectural styles and themes
European
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Utility and storage |
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