This is a list of house types.

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 ...

s 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 Multifamily residential, also known as multidwelling unit (MDU), is a classification of housing where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building or several buildings within one complex. Units can ...

dwellings. Both may vary greatly in scale and the amount of accommodation provided.

By layout

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.

Bungalow

Bungalow A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is typically single or one and a half storey, if a smaller upper storey exists it is frequently set in the roof and Roof window, windows that come out from the roof, and may be surrounded by wide ve ...

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).

Cottage

cottage A cottage, during Feudalism in England, England's feudal period, was the holding by a cottager (known as a cotter or ''bordar'') of a small house with enough garden to feed a family and in return for the cottage, the cottager had to provide ...

is a small house, usually one or two stories in height, although the term is sometimes applied to larger structures.

Ranch

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 The eaves are the edges of the roof which overhang the face of a wall and, normally, project beyond the side of a building. The eaves form an overhang to throw water clear of the walls and may be highly decorated as part of an architectural sty ...

. Ranch styles include: * California ranch: the "original" ranch style, developed in the United States in the early 20th century, before World War II * 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 * Suburban ranch: a modern style of ranch that retains many of the characteristics of the original but is larger, with modern amenities

I-house

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. * New England I-house: characterized by a central chimney * Pennsylvania I-house: characterized by internal gable-end chimneys at the interior of either side of the house * Southern I-house: characterized by external gable-end chimneys on the exterior of either side of the house

Gablefront

A gablefront house or gablefront cottage has a

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

roof that faces its

street A street is a public thoroughfare in a city, town or village, typically lined with Building, buildings on one or both sides. Streets often include pavements (sidewalks), pedestrian crossings, and sometimes amenities like Street light, streetligh ...

or avenue, as in the novel '' The House of Seven Gables''. *

A-frame An A-frame is a basic structure designed to bear a Structural load, load in a lightweight economical manner. The simplest form of an A-frame is two similarly sized Beam (structure), beams, arranged in an angle of 45 degrees or less, attached a ...

: 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 Charleston is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atla ...

, a narrow house with its shoulder to the street and front door on the side. * Upright and Wing: a style originating in New England (particularly Upstate New York) and the Great Lakes states, usually of a

Greek Revival Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...

style.

Split-level

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. * Bi-level, split-entry, or raised ranch * Tri-level, quad-level, quintlevel etc.

Tower

tower house A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, to command and defend strategic points ...

is a compact two or more story house, often fortified. * Irish tower houses were often surrounded by defensive walls called

bawn A bawn is the defensive wall surrounding an Irish tower house. It is the anglicised version of the Irish word ''bábhún'' (sometimes spelt ''badhún''), possibly meaning "cattle-stronghold" or "cattle-enclosure".See alternative traditional s ...

s * Kulla: an Albanian tower house *

Peel tower Peel towers (also spelt pele) are small fortified keeps or tower houses, built along the England, English and Scotland, Scottish Border country, borders in the Scottish Marches and North of England, mainly between the mid-14th century and ab ...

or Pele tower: fortified tower houses in England and Scotland used as

keep A keep is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in castles that were fortified residen ...

s 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 Welsh tower houses were fortified stone houses that were built between the early 14th and 15th centuries. They are related to tower houses, which Tower houses in Britain and Ireland, occur in considerable numbers in Ireland and Scotland and to a ...

: built mostly in the 14th and 15th centuries

Longhouse

longhouse A longhouse or long house is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building for communal dwelling. It has been built in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe, and North America. Many were built from lumber, timber and ...

is historical house type typically for family groups. * Geestharden house: one of the three basic house types in

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; ; ; ; ; occasionally in English ''Sleswick-Holsatia'') is the Northern Germany, northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical Duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of S ...

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 Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy. Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Normandy (a part of France) and insular N ...

and

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

Housebarn

housebarn A housebarn (also house-barn or house barn) is a building that is a combination of a house and a barn under the same roof. Most types of housebarn also have room for livestock quarters. If the living quarters are only combined with a byre, wher ...

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

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 mi ...

s, or a large vehicle such as a recreational vehicle or a large recreational

boat A boat is a watercraft of a large range of types and sizes, but generally smaller than a ship, which is distinguished by its larger size or capacity, its shape, or its ability to carry boats. Small boats are typically used on inland waterways s ...

Byre-dwelling A byre-dwelling ("byre"+ "dwelling") is a farmhouse in which the living quarters are combined with the livestock and/or grain barn under the same roof. In the latter case, the building is also called a housebarn in American English. This kind of ...

: 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 A courtyard house is a type of house—often a large house—where the main part of the building is disposed around a central courtyard. Many houses that have courtyards are not courtyard houses of the type covered by this article. For example, ...

** Riad: a type of

courtyard house A courtyard house is a type of house—often a large house—where the main part of the building is disposed around a central courtyard. Many houses that have courtyards are not courtyard houses of the type covered by this article. For example, ...

found in Morocco ** Siheyuan, Sanheyuan: a type of

found in China * Slope house: a house with soil or rock completely covering the bottom floor on one side and partly two of the walls on the bottom floor. The house has two entries depending on the ground level. *

Snout house A snout house is a house with a protruding garage that takes up most of the street frontage. This layout is worked into many styles of houses, including single-family houses, duplexes and other multifamily structures. Architectural features Su ...

: a house with the garage door being the closest part of the dwelling to the street. *

Octagon house Octagon houses are eight-sided houses that were popular in the United States and Canada mostly in the 1850s. They are characterized by an octagonal (eight-sided) Floor plan, plan and often feature a flat roof and a veranda that circles the hous ...

: a house of symmetrical octagonal floor plan, popularized briefly during the 19th century by Orson Squire Fowler *

Stilt house Stilt houses (also called pile dwellings or lake dwellings) are houses raised on Stilts (architecture), stilts (or piles) over the surface of the soil or a body of water. Stilt houses are built primarily as a protection against flooding; they als ...

: is a house built on stilts above a body of water or the ground (usually in swampy areas prone to flooding). *

Villa A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house that provided an escape from urban life. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the f ...

: 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 Frontage is the boundary between a plot of land or a building and the road onto which the plot or building fronts. Frontage may also refer to the full length of this boundary. This length is considered especially important for certain types of ...

. *

Mansion A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word ''mansio'' "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb ''manere'' "to dwell". The English word ''manse'' originally defined a property l ...

: 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 A greenhouse is a structure that is designed to regulate the temperature and humidity of the environment inside. There are different types of greenhouses, but they all have large areas covered with transparent materials that let sunlight pass an ...

, infinity pool,

bowling alley A bowling alley (also known as a bowling center, bowling lounge, bowling arena, or historically bowling club) is a facility where the sport of bowling is played. It can be a dedicated facility or part of another, such as a clubhouse or dwelling ...

, or server room. *

Palace 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 ...

: the residence of a high ranking

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

official or the country's

ruler A ruler, sometimes called a rule, scale, line gauge, or metre/meter stick, is an instrument used to make length measurements, whereby a length is read from a series of markings called "rules" along an edge of the device. Usually, the instr ...

. *

Castle A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private ...

: a heavily fortified

medieval 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 World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

dwelling or a house styled after medieval castles. Usually with

tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

s, crenellations, and a

stone In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...

exterior.

By construction method or materials

* 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 World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. These are recognizable by their

precast concrete Precast concrete is a construction product produced by casting concrete in a reusable molding (process), mold or "form" which is then cured in a controlled environment, transported to the construction site and maneuvered into place; examples i ...

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 Bastel, bastle, or bastille houses are a type of construction found along the Anglo-Scottish border, in the areas formerly plagued by border reivers. They are fortified Farmhouse (building), farmhouses, characterised by security measures agai ...

: a fortified

farmhouse FarmHouse (FH) is a men's social fraternity founded at the University of Missouri on April 15, 1905. It became a national organization in 1921. Today FarmHouse has 34 active chapters in the United States and Canada.FarmHouse Fraternity New Memb ...

found in England and Scotland *

: a high-status defensive structure/dwelling built during 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 ...

, with some mock castles built in the 18th century to today. * Converted barn: an old barn converted into a house or other use. * Earth sheltered: houses using

dirt Dirt is any matter considered unclean, especially when in contact with a person's clothes, skin, or possessions. In such cases, they are said to become dirty. Common types of dirt include: * Debris: scattered pieces of waste or remains * Du ...

("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 Temperature is a physical quantity that quantitatively expresses the attribute of hotness or coldness. Temperature is measurement, measured with a thermometer. It reflects the average kinetic energy of the vibrating and colliding atoms making ...

** Pit-house: a prehistoric house type used on many continents and of many styles, partially sunken into the ground. **

Rammed earth Rammed earth is a technique for construction, constructing foundations, floors, and walls using compacted natural raw materials such as soil, earth, chalk, Lime (material), lime, or gravel. It is an ancient method that has been revived recently ...

Sod house The sod house or soddy was a common alternative to the log cabin during frontier settlement of the Great Plains of North America in the 1800s and early 1900s. Primarily used at first for animal shelters, corrals, and fences, they came into use ...

** Earthbag home ** Souterrain: an earthen dwelling typically deriving from Neolithic Age or

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

times. ** Underground home: a type of dwelling dug and constructed underground. Ex. A Rammed-Earth Style House **

Yaodong A yaodong (窰 in native Jin Chinese, or 窰洞 ''yáodòng'' in Beijing Mandarin) is a particular form of Earth sheltering, earth shelter dwelling common in the Loess Plateau in China's north. They are generally carved out of a hillside or exc ...

: a dugout used as an abode or shelter in northern China, especially on the

Loess Plateau The Loess Plateau is a plateau in north-central China formed of loess, a clastic rock, clastic silt-like sediment formed by the accumulation of Dust#Atmospheric, wind-blown dust. It is located southeast of the Gobi Desert and is surrounded by t ...

Wattle and daub Wattle and daub is a composite material, composite building method in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called "wattle (construction), wattle" is "daubed" with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, and ...

Adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) 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 use ...

: a type of

mudbrick Mudbrick or mud-brick, also known as unfired brick, is an air-dried brick, made of a mixture of mud (containing loam, clay, sand and water) mixed with a binding material such as rice husks or straw. Mudbricks are known from 9000 BCE. From ...

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 Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

, Yup'ik, and

Aleut Aleuts ( ; (west) or (east) ) are the Indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands, which are located between the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Both the Aleuts and the islands are politically divided between the US state of Alaska ...

seasonal or emergency shelter that was made of knife-sliced blocks of packed snow and/or ice in the

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

regions of

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

, Canada, Greenland, and

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

n 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 The human back, also called the dorsum (: dorsa), is the large posterior area of the human body, rising from the top of the buttocks to the back of the neck. It is the surface of the body opposite from the chest and the abdomen. The vertebral ...

* Log home,

Log cabin A log cabin is a small log house, especially a minimally finished or less architecturally sophisticated structure. Log cabins have an ancient history in Europe, and in America are often associated with first-generation home building by settl ...

: 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 A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...

, and then transported to their final building site to be assembled upon a

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 ...

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 *

s 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

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 A semi-detached house (often abbreviated to semi) is a single-family Duplex (building), duplex dwelling that shares one common party wall, wall with its neighbour. The name distinguishes this style of construction from detached houses, with no sh ...

) 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 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 ...

terraced house A terrace, terraced house ( UK), or townhouse ( US) is a type of medium-density housing which first started in 16th century Europe with a row of joined houses sharing side walls. In the United States and Canada these are sometimes known as row ...

, 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 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 ...

-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 Weaver or Weavers may refer to: Activities * A person who engages in weaving fabric Animals * Various birds of the family Ploceidae * Crevice weaver spider family * Orb-weaver spider family * Weever (or weever-fish) Arts and entertainment ...

Movable dwellings

* Chattel house: a small wooden house occupied by

working-class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

people on Barbados. Originally relocatable; personal chattel (property) rather than fixed

real property In English common law, real property, real estate, immovable property or, solely in the US and Canada, realty, refers to parcels of land and any associated structures which are the property of a person. For a structure (also called an Land i ...

. * 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) * Recreational vehicle or RV: a motor vehicle or trailer that can be used for habitation **

Travel trailer A caravan, travel trailer, camper, tourer or camper trailer is a Trailer (vehicle), trailer towed behind a road vehicle to provide a place to sleep which is more comfortable and protected than a tent (although there are popup camper, fold-down ...

, 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 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 tent is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over or attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using g ...

: a temporary, movable dwelling usually constructed with fabric covering a frame of lightweight wood or other locally-available material ** Tipi: a conical tent originating in North America **

Yurt A yurt (from the Turkic languages) or ger (Mongolian language, Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered and Thermal insulation, insulated with Hide (skin), skins or felt and traditionally used as a dwelling by several distinct Nomad, nomad ...

: a round tent with a conical roof originating in Central Asia

Notes

References

* * * * * *

External links

House Images

Architectural Housing Styles
at Old House Web
Bilingual Glossary of House types

A comprehensive summary of common residential architectural styles and themes
{{DEFAULTSORT:House Types, List Of House types Lists of residential buildings