House Types
Residential buildings can be divided into houses and apartments. However, each genre can be subdivided, as the list below shows. Not all the terms, though, are commonly used in the English language.
Houses
- A-frame: because of its A-shaped structure.
- Barracks: military dwellings.
- Brownstone: also rowhouse.
- Cape Cod: from the Cape of Northwestern United States.
- Cape Dutch: from the Western Cape of South Africa
- Choultry: a South-Indian Hindu-Caravanserai.
- Colonial house: a traditional style American house.
- Cottage: usually pertains to a small rural house, though weavers’ cottages are three-storied townhouses with working quarters on the top floor.
- Detached: a stand-alone house that is completely separated from neighboring structures.
- Bungalow: single story house.
- Backsplit: looks like a bungalow from the front but is multi-level on the inside.
- Frontsplit: opposite of backsplit. This house looks like a two-storey house from the front and a bungalow from the back, but is actually multilevel.
- Sidesplit: multilevel house which is apparent as such from the outside.
- Link-detached: Essentially detached houses joined by the garage so appearing like a single structure from the front.
- Two-story, three-story
- Ranch: single story, normally incorporating garage and basement.
- Prefab: a house where the main structure is prefabricated (common after WWII).
- Lustron house: a kind of prefabricated house style.
- Farmhouse: residential headquarters of a farm.
- Linked: rowhouse or semi-detached house appear detached but are linked at the foundation to reduce costs.
- Faux chateau: suburban houses popular in the 80s and 90s with superficial French motifs.
- Floating House: floats on water.
- Igloo: house made of ice.
- Log cabin: built with unsquared timber.
- Mansion: expansive and costly house.
- McMansion: suburban houses popular in the 80s and 90s with exaggerated styles.
- Microhouse: compacted dwellings that contain the fundamental house requirements.
- Rowhouse: also called terraced house or townhouse. There are houses, three or more, built in a row with shared walls.
- Saltbox: popular New England colonial style house.
- Sears house: kit houses to be put together by owners sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. from 1906-1940.
- Semi-detached: two houses joined at one wall.
- Shophouse: terraced multi-storey house featuring shop or storehouse-type space on ground floor with residence on the upper floor.
- Shotgun house: common in the southern United States from after the Civil War (1861–65) to the 1920s.
- Stilt houses: stilt-raised houses over earth or shallow water.
- Storybook Houses: Hollywood-inspired houses of the 1920s.
- Tent: canvas or fabric portable dwelling.
- Back-to-back: terraced houses that are also linked to a similar row of houses to the rear.
- Treehouse: a dwelling built on a tree above the ground.
- Shack: A usually old, neglected and small wooden structure.
- Travel trailer: caravan house.
- Tudor style: inspired by the designs and themes of 1485-1603 Tudor, England.
- Vernacular houses: these are dwellings that incorporate native themes with local materials.
- Villa
Similar entries
- Flats/Apartments
- Dingbat - Mid-20th Century Mass Housing Solution to the Burgeoning American Middle-Class
- Cape Cod Houses
- Ranch Bungalow
- Bungalow - Elegant One Story Housing
- A-frame Homes
- Bungalow with a Loft
- Log Homes - Centuries Old House Style
- Raised Bungalow
- Long house – Earliest Permanent House Buildings
- American Craftsman
- Construction Methods of Log Houses
- Dutch Colonial Architectural style in USA
- Chicago Bungalow
- Garrison – House Style Modeled After Lookouts