Housing Style Assignment
Colonial
Description of house style
- Recognized for use of symmetry
- paired chimneys
- medium pitched roof to drain well during certain weather
- wide porch
- Columns
History
The Colonial style evolved from European influences, which started in the 1600s. Many colonists emigrated from Europe and brought those influences with them to America. They off started as two-story homes that featured one room on each floor and eventually grew into four over four, two-story homes. The Colonial style got influenced from England when London burned in 1666. Several architects helped influence the city’s reconstruction such as Andrea Palladio, an Italian architect popular during the Renaissance. Their architecture was based partly on Roman and Greek ruins. Those influences can be seen in the geometric part of Colonial homes and certain accents, such as Greek style columns on the front.
Materials & Technology
- European wattle and daub (woven lattice of wooden strips covered with a material made with some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung, and straw), constructing wood-frame
- The homes were covered with weatherboard, clapboard, or shingles.
- Used local timber
- two stories tall with steeply pitched roofs in order to brush off heavy snow loads
- Central chimneys were standard, being the most efficient way to heat these buildings
- Todays time retains very little use of these original materials