Construction

Modern house-construction techniques include light-frame construction (in areas with access to supplies of wood) and adobe or sometimes rammed-earth construction (in arid regions with scarce wood-resources). Some areas use brick almost exclusively, and quarried stone has long provided walling. To some extent, aluminum and steel have displaced some traditional building materials. Increasingly popular alternative construction materials include insulating concrete forms (foam forms filled with concrete), structural insulated panels (foam panels faced with oriented strand board or fiber cement), and light-gauge steel framing and heavy-gauge steel framing.

More generally, people often build houses out of the nearest available material, and often tradition and/or culture govern construction-materials, so whole towns, areas, counties or even states/countries may be built out of one main type of material. For example, a large fraction of American houses use wood, while most British and many European houses utilize stone or brick.

Some home designers have begun to collaborate with structural engineers who use computers and finite element analysis to design prefabricated steel-framed homes with known resistance to high wind-loads and seismic forces. These newer products provide labour savings, more consistent quality, and possibly accelerated construction processes.

Lesser-used construction methods have gained (or regained) popularity in recent years. Though not in wide use, these methods frequently appeal to homeowners who may become actively involved in the construction process. They include:

Cannabrick construction

cordwood construction

straw-bale construction

geodesic domes wattle and daub

Types of houses

Structure

The developed world in general features three basic house types:
Single-family homes - detached and often standing on their own parcel of land Semi-detached houses - attached to one or more houses Terraced house (UK) or row house (also known as a townhouse) (USA) - attached to other houses, possibly in a row (separated by a party wall) In the United Kingdom, 27% of the population lived in terraced houses and 32% in semi-detached houses, as of 2002. In the United States in 2000, 61.4% of people lived in detached houses and 5.6% in semi-detached houses, 26% in row houses or apartments, and 7% in mobile homes.
People build "face houses" in one or more faces; though they occur most commonly as a fort or playhouse for a child, this design sometimes serves as a house for adults.

Shape

Archaeologists have a particular interest in house shape: they see the transition over time from round huts to rectangular houses as a significant advance in optimizing the use of space, and associate it with the growth of the idea of a personal area (see personal space).

Function

Some houses transcend the basic functionality of providing "a roof over one's head" or of serving as a family "hearth and home". When a house becomes a display-case for wealth and/or fashion and/or conspicuous consumption, we may speak of a "great house". The residence of a feudal lord or of a ruler may require defensive structures and thus turn into a fort or a castle. The house of a monarch may come to house courtiers and officers as well as the royal family: this sort of house may become a palace. Moreover, in time the lord or monarch may wish to retreat to a more personal or simple space such as a villa, a hunting lodge or a dacha. Compare the popularity of the holiday house or cottage, also known as a crib.

In contrast to a relatively upper class or modern trend to multiple houses, much of human history shows the importance of multi-purpose houses. Thus the house long served as the traditional place of work (the original cottage industry site or "in-house" small-scale manufacturing workshop) or of commerce (featuring, for example, a ground floor "ship-front" shop or counter or office, with living space above). It took an Industrial Revolution to separate manufacturing and banking from the house; and to this day some shopkeepers continue (or have returned) to live "over the shop".