Typology: The semi-detached house | Thinkpiece | Architectural Review
▻https://www.architectural-review.com/rethink/typology/typology-the-semi-detached-house/8685582.article
Symbol of middle-class aspiration, conservatism and compromised individualism, the semi-detached house is England’s modern domestic type par excellence
‘My pink half of the drainpipe keeps me safe from you’: so sang the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band about the ambiguous pleasures of the semi-detached house. This type - the Doppelhaus in German, or the duplex, as it is known in much of North America - is England’s great gift to world architecture, and to comedy. A symbol of middle-class aspiration, conservatism and compromised individualism, it is the British modern domestic type par excellence, even though it has more frequently appeared in Tudorbethan fancy dress than high-tech garb. This may make our metropolitan readers wince, but it is undeniable that the semi is the dream (and actual) home of vast numbers of people: it is the most common dwelling in the UK, where it houses one third of the population. Why should this be? Where did the semi come from? And, in the midst of an acute housing crisis and widespread calls for ‘sustainability’, what can we - should we - do about this bipolar beast that gobbles up space and people’s hearts along with it?
