Semi-detached
Encyclopedia
House
A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...
(often abbreviated to semi in the UK, Canada and Australia, as in "three-bedroom semi") consists of pairs of houses built side by side as units sharing a party wall
Party wall
Party wall is a dividing partition between two adjoining buildings that is shared by the tenants of each residence or business. The wall is sometimes constructed over the center of the property line dividing two terraced flats or row houses so that one half of the wall is on each property...
and usually in such a way that each house's layout is a mirror image of its twin. This style of housing, although built throughout the world, is commonly seen as particularly symbolic of the suburbanisation of the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, or post-war homes in Central Canada
Central Canada
Central Canada is a region consisting of Canada's two largest and most populous provinces: Ontario and Quebec. Due to their high populations, Ontario and Quebec have traditionally held a significant amount of political power in Canada, leading to some amount of resentment from other regions of the...
. Confusingly, this is sometimes colloquially called a duplex
Duplex (building)
The term duplex can be used to describe several different dwelling unit configurations:A duplex house is defined as a dwelling having apartments with separate entrances for two families. This includes two-story houses having a complete apartment on each floor and also side-by-side apartments on a...
in New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
, other parts of the United States, and most of Canada, a term used elsewhere for two apartments, one above the other.
This type of housing can be thought of as being a half-way state between terraced or row housing
Terraced house
In architecture and city planning, a terrace house, terrace, row house, linked house or townhouse is a style of medium-density housing that originated in Great Britain in the late 17th century, where a row of identical or mirror-image houses share side walls...
and single-family detached homes. Terraced housing is constituted by continuous row houses with open spaces at the front and back, while semi-detached houses have front, rear and any one side open spaces, and individual detached houses have open spaces on all sides.
History
During the 19th century, a father and son architectural partnership, John Shaw, Sr. and John Shaw, Jr., drew up some of the very first designs for semi-detached housing in London. Examples of their work can be seen in Chalk Farm, North London. In the BritishUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
housing boom of the 1920s and 1930s semi-detached houses sprang up in suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
s throughout the country, and were popular with middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
home owners who preferred them to terrace houses
Terraced house
In architecture and city planning, a terrace house, terrace, row house, linked house or townhouse is a style of medium-density housing that originated in Great Britain in the late 17th century, where a row of identical or mirror-image houses share side walls...
. The design of many of these houses, highly characteristic of the era, was heavily influenced by the Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
movement, taking influence from Tudor Revival, chalet style
Swiss chalet style
Swiss chalet style is an architectural style inspired by the chalets of Switzerland. The style originated in Germany in the early 19th century and was popular in parts of Europe and North America, notably in the architecture of Norway, the country house architecture of Sweden, Cincinnati, Ohio,...
, and even ship design.
In the immediate post-war years many council house
Council house
A council house, otherwise known as a local authority house, is a form of public or social housing. The term is used primarily in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Council houses were built and operated by local councils to supply uncrowded, well-built homes on secure tenancies at...
s also followed the 'semi' format, giving many Britons
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
a first experience of private garden space.
Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, a semi-detached house is a different form of real property title from a townhouse
Townhouse
A townhouse is the term historically used in the United Kingdom, Ireland and in many other countries to describe a residence of a peer or member of the aristocracy in the capital or major city. Most such figures owned one or more country houses in which they lived for much of the year...
. A semi-detached house sits on a single property, owned in its entirety by the owner of the semi-detached house; a townhouse has a strata title
Strata title
Strata title is a form of ownership devised for multi-level apartment blocks and horizontal subdivisions with shared areas. The 'strata' part of the term refers to apartments being on different levels, or "strata"....
or more recently known as a community title in South Australia. Semi-detached houses come only in pairs, whereas townhouses may number more than two, attached together. In Sydney, semi-detached houses still referred to as 'semis' were briefly popular at the beginning of the 20th century and many examples may be found in inner suburbs such as Drummoyne. However, this style quickly gave way to the 'modern' style of detached housing which allowed better motor vehicle access amongst other benefits.
Canada
The semi-detached house was seen as a good fit for downtown TorontoToronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
's long, narrow lots early in the city's history, and their popularity was well established by the late 19th century. Victorian examples can be seen in areas such as The Annex
The Annex
The Annex is a neighbourhood in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The traditional boundaries of the neighbourhood are north to Dupont Street, south to Bloor Street, west to Bathurst Street and east to Avenue Road...
, but the style was arguably most popular during the first few decades of the 20th century. They continued to be built well into the 1950s, often alongside detached types such as the bungalow
Bungalow
A bungalow is a type of house, with varying meanings across the world. Common features to many of these definitions include being detached, low-rise , and the use of verandahs...
. Red-brick semis are a common sight throughout downtown neighbourhoods and older suburbs; in fact, they are so typical of Toronto they could be seen as its answer to the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
brownstone
Brownstone
Brownstone is a brown Triassic or Jurassic sandstone which was once a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States to refer to a terraced house clad in this material.-Types:-Apostle Island brownstone:...
.
In Canada, some semi-detached homes have linked basements, such that the houses do not have individual basements. These are called linked semi-detached homes. This should not be confused with linked homes
Linked house
A linked house is a type of home whereby the homes above ground appear to be detached, but they share a common wall in the basement or foundation....
which appear detached, but there is a linkage below ground.
United Kingdom
In the UK semi-detached houses are the most common property type, accounting for 32% of UK housing transactions and 32% of the English housing stock as of 2008. But there has been a decline. Between 1945 and 1964, 41% of all properties built were semis, but after 1980 they fell to 15%.Cultural references
- "Semi-detached suburban Mr. James", written and performed by Manfred MannManfred MannManfred Mann was a British beat, rhythm and blues and pop band of the 1960s, named after their South African keyboardist, Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band...
, a song about a lost love marrying a philistinePhilistinismPhilistinism is a derogatory term used to a particular attitude or set of values perceived as despising or undervaluing art, beauty, spirituality, or intellectualism. A person with this attitude is referred to as a Philistine and may also be considered materialistic, favoring conventional social...
or babbittBabbitt-Fiction:*Babbitt , a 1922 novel by Sinclair Lewis.**Babbitt , a 1924 film based on the novel**Babbitt , a 1934 film based on the novel...
living in a small suburban house, released in 1966 (Fontana TF 757), reached No. 2 in the UK charts. - "...semi by the sea" is part of a lyric from musician James BluntJames BluntJames Hillier Blount , better known by his stage name James Blunt, is an English singer-songwriter and musician, and former army officer, whose debut album, Back to Bedlam and single releases, including "You're Beautiful" and "Goodbye My Lover", brought him to fame in 2005...
in the song "Wisemen", released in March 2005; it was the second single off of his 10x platinum Back to Bedlam album.