Form of Your House
Form is about geometry. It doesn't care what something is made of.
Where does the design of my house come from?
Although your house is individual, many others share the same basic form. The most common house type in Halifax is a townhouse with a side-hall plan. This vernacular design was popular in British cities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was exported to Canada (especially Halifax, Montreal, and Toronto) and the United States (especially Boston, New York, and Philadelphia).
How are the interior spaces of my house organized?
The main floor has three rooms from front to back, with an entry and hallway on one side, plus a cutout in the back to let light, air, and views into the middle room. A staircase in the hallway leads to one or more floors above. The main floor is typically elevated above street level, allowing some light and ventilation into the basement and enabling a raised porch to be added to the front.
A side-hall townhouse is a "plan building": A floor level is established, a plan is laid out, then interior walls are extended up to the next floor level. Ceilings are uniform in height; only stairways have a higher vertical space. This layered pattern is evident in Rachel Whiteread's cast of the interior spaces of an abandoned townhouse in London. Variations are possible; a side-hall plan can be stretched in any direction and the interior walls can be opened up.
Rachel Whiteread, House (1993–94) [source]
Can the form of my house be combined with others?
The form of a single side-hall house anticipates a row of similar houses along a street. Because its windows are located mainly on the front and back, the house can have blank side walls without windows. This enables the form to be combined in different ways: detached, duplicated into a semi-detached pair, or multiplied into a series of rowhouses. If the property is wide enough, one side of the house can be pushed to the edge of the property to allow backyard access and parking on the other side.
Side-hall houses along streets in Halifax face in any direction: north, south, east, or west. There was no special attention to locate the main living areas of the house on the south side, where they would receive the most direct sunlight. With a row of townhouses facing a similar row of houses on the other side of the street, an urban neighbourhood begins to form.
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Side-hall plans on properties with different widths: 20 feet (top row) and 30 feet (bottom row)
​How was my house intended to be used?
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A side-hall house is basically a residential building (although it can be converted to other uses). Its elevated main floor is not well suited to commercial use at street level. As a residence, it presumes a family unit. Earlier houses usually consisted of a series of linked rooms, but a growing nineteenth-century desire for privacy within the house and containment of heat led to rooms being separated and accessed via an adjacent hall. This pattern enables side-hall houses to work well as a rooming house for tenants. The building also can be divided into separate residential flats above and below, each with its own front door.
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During the nineteenth century, side-hall houses often had a kitchen for a hired cook in the basement, where sounds and smells would be isolated from the rest of the house. A dumb-waiter might transport meals between the kitchen below and the dining room above.
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Rooms with built-in fixtures (such as stoves and bathtubs) have obvious uses, but uses for the other rooms are more flexible. Side-hall houses have a formal front and an informal back that influence how front and back rooms on the main floor are used. This also influences the use of exterior spaces: typically a formal garden at the front and different things at the back.
Plans showing room uses in a four-storey side-hall townhouse in nineteenth-century London. From Norbert Schoenauer, 6000 Years of Housing.
​What are the interior features of my house called?
Parts of your house interior have names. To discuss your house with others (such as contractors), it's useful to know some of the names.
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What are the exterior features of my house called?
Your house may have some or all of the features in this late nineteenth-century house. Most of them are both useful and decorative. ("Decoration" is related to decorum, to act appropriately and ethically within one's community.)
Are there drawings of my house?
The form and dimensions of your house would have been drawn for construction, but those drawings probably were discarded unless an architect was involved and an individual building permit was issued.
When you purchased your house, you may have received a drawing by a surveyor that shows the boundaries of the property and the placement of the house.
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Now that the house is built, new measured drawings can be made: a plan of each level; a section cut through the house that shows heights and levels; and elevation drawings of the front, back, and sides. There are conventions for doing this that an architect, building technologist, or architecture student would know. If you're planning renovations, drawings of the existing house will be needed.
Section and plan of a green pepper