There is an enormous variety in the style of houses built in different parts of the world. Local conditions play an important part in the design of houses. In regularly-flooded areas, houses are built on stilts. Strong foundations are necessary where earthquakes are common. Houses in mountainous lands often have steep roofs, so that heavy layers of snow can slide off.
It is the custom in Islamic countries to keep family and visitors apart, and also for men and women to live separately, so each storey in the house has its own special purpose. The top floor is kept for visitors, for example. It has windows to catch cooling breezes.
The Bedouin people are nomads who live in the deserts of Arabia and Africa, herding cattle, sheep and goats. They do not have permanent houses but carry tents with them as they travel around. The tents are made of woollen cloth stretched across wooden poles and held in place with ropes. Some Bedouins now work in towns and cities instead of following the nomadic life but, like the Mongolians, many still choose to live in traditional tents in the desert rather than in the towns.
Mudbrick is a traditional building material that has been used for centuries. Early builders noticed that mud bakes hard in hot sun. So they shaped the bricks from wet mud and then left them to dry.
The round houses in the Cote d’Ivoire in West Africa are made from baked mud with thatched roofs of dried reeds. Many early houses and huts were round like tents, but as time went by people began to build rectangular houses which were easier to fit along streets in villages and towns. Many mudbrick buildings in the Middle East are thousands of years old. They often have flat, rather than steeply sloping, roofs -unnecessary in these very dry regions.
In the centre of large cities there is very little room for big houses with gardens. Many people live in apartment blocks which tower into the sky. Around the outskirts of a city there will be suburbs where the houses can be more spacious. People prefer to live in the suburbs and commute (travel to work) to the city.
People live on or near the water for other reasons than overcrowding. The Bajau people from the Philippines travel around the islands of Southeast Asia catching and selling fish. They sometimes live in their boats, which are called lipas, or in wooden houses on stilts in the water.
Another type of traditional house is the Inuit igloo. Nowadays, Inuit people, from Canada’s Arctic north and Greenland, live in modern houses on settlements, but when they go on hunting or fishing trip they may still build an igloo for shelter.
An igloo is a dome-shaped house made of snow. First, blocks of snow are cut out and laid one on top of the other to form the dome. Each layer leans inwards slightly so that the blocks eventually meet at the top. When the dome has been completed, a lamp is lit inside to melt the snow on the inside walls. Then the lamp is removed and the cold wind freezes the melted snow into a solid, smooth sheet of ice which keeps the walls firm and wind tight. Finally, skins and rugs are draped over the walls and ceiling to make the igloo warmer inside.
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