s of some
Ancient Egyptian house, in the
Louvre house model, –1675 BC, terracotta, in the
Heraklion Archaeological Museum (
Heraklion,
Greece) of a "
foursquare" house Little is known about the earliest origin of the house and its interior; however, it can be traced back to the simplest form of shelters. An exceptionally well-preserved house dating to the fifth millennium BC and with its contents still preserved was for example excavated at
Tell Madhur in
Iraq.
Roman architect
Vitruvius' theories have claimed the first form of
architecture as a frame of timber branches finished in mud, also known as the
primitive hut.
Middle Ages In the
Middle Ages, the
Manor Houses facilitated different activities and events. Furthermore, the houses accommodated numerous people, including family, relatives, employees, servants and their guests. During the 15th and 16th centuries, the
Italian Renaissance Palazzo consisted of plentiful rooms of connectivity. Unlike the qualities and uses of the Manor Houses, most rooms of the
palazzo contained no purpose, yet were given several doors. These doors adjoined rooms in which
Robin Evans describes as a "matrix of discrete but thoroughly interconnected chambers." The layout allowed occupants to freely walk room to room from one door to another, thus breaking the boundaries of
privacy. :"Once inside it is necessary to pass from one room to the next, then to the next to traverse the building. Where passages and staircases are used, as inevitably they are, they nearly always connect just one space to another and never serve as general distributors of movement. Thus, despite the precise architectural containment offered by the addition of room upon room, the villa was, in terms of occupation, an open plan, relatively permeable to the numerous members of the household." The separation of the passageway from the room developed the function of the
corridor. This new extension was revolutionary at the time, allowing the integration of one door per room, in which all universally connected to the same corridor.
English architect
Sir Roger Pratt states "the common way in the middle through the whole length of the house, [avoids] the offices from one molesting the other by continual passing through them."
Social hierarchies within the 17th century were highly regarded, as architecture was able to epitomize the servants and the upper class. More privacy is offered to the occupant as Pratt further claims, "the ordinary servants may never publicly appear in passing to and fro for their occasions there." Rooms were changed from public to private as single entryways forced notions of entering a room with a specific purpose.
Technology and electronic systems have caused privacy issues and issues with segregating personal life from
remote work. Technological advances in
surveillance and
communications allow insight into personal habits and private lives. As a result, the "private becomes ever more public, [and] the desire for a protective home life increases, fuelled by the very media that undermine it," writes
Jonathan Hill. Work has been altered by the increase of communications. The "deluge of information" has expressed the efforts of work conveniently gaining access inside the house. Although commuting is reduced, the desire to separate working and living remains apparent. On the other hand, some architects have designed homes in which eating, working and living are brought together. ==Gallery==