Building Styles

Houses and public buildings in Britain and the US have been built in a range of styles and materials. Old and new stand side by side. In Britain there are timber-framed houses, buildings of brick or stone, and modern concrete and glass structures. Many US architectural styles came originally from Europe.

In the US there is plenty of space, except in big cities, so many houses are large and have a lot of garden around them. Most are detached, but there are also duplexes. Ranch-style houses are built on one floor only. Mansions are very large houses where rich people live. Some types of houses are associated with certain parts of the country. New York City, for instance, is famous for its brownstone, tall, narrow buildings named after the material used to build them. In the Midwest there are many wooden frame houses with pointed roofs. The South has wooden houses built before the Civil War in the antebellum style. But all over the US houses are built in many different styles.

Many Americans prefer to live in the suburbs rather than in a city centre in order to have a pleasant environment and plenty of space. They often live on housing developments, areas where all the houses were built at the same time and are similar in style.

In cities many people rent an apartment in an apartment Semi-detached houses building. Apartments usually have in England

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по more than three bedrooms, and are often rented furnished. An apartment with only one room may be called a studio or a loft. A building in which the apartments are owned by the people who live in them is called a condominium or a co-op. Poor people may live in apartments in tenements in the downtown area of a city, in small, very basic houses or in mobile homes. Despite the name, many people keep their mobile home in a trailer park and never move it.

Many people in Britain live in the suburbs consisting of new housing estates, while others were originally villages that have become joined to the town as it has grown. Villages are considered to be pleasant places to live, as they are quieter and less polluted than towns and are closer to the countryside. They usually contain a range of houses, including old cottages and new houses and bungalows.

Most houses are built of brick with a tiled roof, though some are built of stone. The largest and most expensive type of house is a detached house, which is not joined to other houses and has a garden all round it. Detached houses have at least three bedrooms and one or two bathrooms upstairs, and one or more Jiving rooms plus a separate dining room and kitchen downstairs.

Semi-detached houses, or semis, are extremely common. They are built in pairs with one house joined to the other along one side. These houses usually have two or three bedrooms. There is a separate garden at the front and the back for each house.

Terraced houses date from Victorian and Edwardian times and were built mainly for working-class people. Four or more houses are joined together in a row. Terraced houses were originally quite small. Most have now been extended and bathrooms added, and in some towns they have become fashionable with professional people. Cottages are small, very old village houses. Some have thatched roofs. Many have been modernized inside but still keep the wooden beams and other features that are thought to give them character. Some people think of a country cottage as their dream home. Bungalows have one storey, and this makes them especially popular

with older people. They are mostly found in villages or on housing estates.

High-rise blocks of flats, sometimes over 20 storeys high with several flats on each floor, were built in many towns in the mid 20th century. Many have since been pulled down because they needed a lot of repairs and because people did not like living in them.