An apartment, or flat, is a self-contained housing unit that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are many names for these overall buildings, see below. The housing tenure of apartments also varies considerably, from large-scale public housing, to owner occupancy within what is legally a condominium, to tenants renting from a private landlord.
A dormitory is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university students. In some countries, it can also refer to a room containing several beds accommodating people.
A boarding house is a house in which lodgers rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, and years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. They normally provide "room and board," that is, at least some meals as well as accommodation.
A studio apartment, also known as a studio flat (UK), a self-contained apartment (Nigeria), efficiency apartment, bed-sitter (Kenya) or bachelor apartment, is a small apartment in which the normal functions of a number of rooms – often the living room, bedroom, and kitchen – are combined into a single room.
A cottage, during England's feudal period, was the holding by a cottager of a small house with enough garden to feed a family and in return for the cottage, the cottager had to provide some form of service to the manorial lord. However, in time cottage just became the general term for a small house. In modern usage, a cottage is usually a modest, often cosy dwelling, typically in a rural or semi-rural location and not necessarily in England. The cottage orné, often quite large and grand residences built by the nobility, dates back to a movement of "rustic" stylised cottages of the late 18th and early 19th century during the Romantic movement.
A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained, and a historical term for what would now usually be called a living room, although today's palaces, country houses, and manor houses in Britain would be said to have drawing rooms. The name is derived from the 16th-century terms withdrawing room and withdrawing chamber, which remained in use through the 17th century, and made their first written appearance in 1642. In a large 16th to early 18th century English house, a withdrawing room was a room to which the owner of the house, his wife, or a distinguished guest who was occupying one of the main apartments in the house could "withdraw" for more privacy. It was often off the great chamber and usually led to a formal, or "state" bedroom.
A state room in a large European mansion is usually one of a suite of very grand rooms which were designed to impress. The term was most widely used in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were the most lavishly decorated in the house and contained the finest works of art. State rooms were usually only found in the houses of the upper echelons of the aristocracy, those who were likely to entertain a head of state. They were generally to accommodate and entertain distinguished guests, especially a monarch and/or a royal consort, or other high-ranking aristocrats and state officials, hence the name. In their original form a set of state rooms made up a state apartment, which always included a bedroom.
A hostal is a type of lodging very common in Spain and Hispanic America. Hostals tend to be cheaper than hotels. They normally have a bar, restaurant or cafeteria where drinks and food are sold to guests and locals alike.
A gîte is a type of accommodation that comes in a variety of forms, ranging from a gîtes d'etape, a hostel, for walkers and cyclists, to a gîte rural, a holiday home in the country available for rent. The term gîte originally meant quite simply a form of shelter. Gîtes d'etape, which resemble mountain huts, or youth hostel, usually provide meals and have dormitory accommodation. They are found along Grande Randonnée long distance trails. The holiday homes type are fully furnished and equipped for self-catering. Some owners may also provide meals.
Housing in Japan includes modern and traditional styles. Two patterns of residences are predominant in contemporary Japan: the single-family detached house and the multiple-unit building, either owned by an individual or corporation and rented as apartments to tenants, or owned by occupants. Additional kinds of housing, especially for unmarried people, include boarding houses, dormitories, and barracks.
Housing in Portugal is generally similar to housing in the rest of Europe. However, some specificities exist. Portugal has the highest rate of rural population in Western Europe, which means that roughly a third of the Portuguese families live in farms or properties outside urban areas. Another characteristic is that most of the urban population is actually suburban. The metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto each have over 2 million inhabitants. In these areas, families live in apartment blocs, each apartment usually having two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and one or two bathrooms.
A rooming house, also called a "multi-tenant house", is a "dwelling with multiple rooms rented out individually", in which the tenants share bathroom and kitchen facilities. Rooming houses are often used as housing for low-income people, as rooming houses are the least expensive housing for single adults. Rooming houses are usually owned and operated by private landlords. Rooming houses are better described as a "living arrangement" rather than a specially "built form" of housing; rooming houses involve people who are not related living together, often in an existing house, and sharing a kitchen, bathroom, and in some cases a living room or dining room. While there are purpose-built rooming houses, these are rare.
An apartment hotel or aparthotel is a serviced apartment complex that uses a hotel-style booking system. It is similar to renting an apartment, but with no fixed contracts and occupants can "check out" whenever they wish.
Multifamily residential is a classification of housing where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building or several buildings within one complex. Units can be next to each other, or stacked on top of each other. A common form is an apartment building. Many intentional communities incorporate multifamily residences, such as in cohousing projects. Sometimes units in a multifamily residential building are condominiums, where typically the units are owned individually rather than leased from a single apartment building owner.
In a building, a room is any space enclosed within a number of walls to which entry is possible only by a door or other dividing structure that connects it either to a passageway, to another room, or to the outdoors, that is large enough for several persons to move about, and whose size, fixtures, furnishings, and sometimes placement within the building support the activity to be conducted in it.
A kitchenette is a small cooking area, which usually has a refrigerator and a microwave, but may have other appliances. In some motel and hotel rooms, small apartments, college dormitories, or office buildings, a kitchenette consists of a small refrigerator, a microwave oven, and sometimes a sink. New York City building code defines a kitchenette as a kitchen of less than 7.4 m2 (80 ft2) of floor space.
A microapartment, also known as a microflat, is a one-room, self-contained living space, usually purpose built, designed to accommodate a sitting space, sleeping space, bathroom and kitchenette with 14–32 square metres. Unlike a traditional studio flat, residents may also have access to a communal kitchen, communal bathroom/shower, patio and roof garden. The microapartments are often designed for futons, or with pull-down beds, folding desks and tables, and extra-small or hidden appliances. They differ from bedsits, the traditional British bed-sitting room, in that they are self-contained, with their own bathroom, toilet, and kitchenette.
Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, buildings or housing in general.
Co-living is a residential community living model that accommodates three or more biologically unrelated people. Generally coliving is a type of intentional community that provides shared housing for people with similar values or intentions. The coliving experience may simply include group discussions in common areas or weekly meals, although will oftentimes extend to shared workspace and collective endeavors such as living more sustainably. An increasing number of people across the world are turning to coliving in order to unlock the same benefits as other communal living models, including "comfort, affordability, and a greater sense of social belonging."
A hasukjib is a type of housing in South Korea that is commonly used by working adults but more popular among university students. Typically, hasukjib take the form of a small room with a single bed, desk and a mini fridge. There are several rooms on each floor of the building and usually has a restroom, shower and laundry room shared by the tenants. Meals are also often provided by the landlord or more commonly a landlady and included in the rent. The rent varies by the size of the rooms and quality of the facilities, but it's generally considered cheap and affordable. Hasukjib are often compared to goshiwon, a similar form of single-room housing in Korea.
