An apartment, flat, or unit is a self-contained housing unit that occupies part of a building, generally on a single storey. There are many names for these overall buildings. 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, also known as a hall of residence or a residence hall, 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, some meals as well as accommodation.
A studio apartment, or studio condo also known as a studio flat (UK), self-contained apartment (Nigeria), efficiency apartment, bed-sitter (Kenya), or bachelor apartment, is a small dwelling in which the normal functions of a number of rooms – often the living room, bedroom, and kitchen – are combined into a single room.
A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained, and an alternative name for a living room. 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 for use when entertaining royalty. 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.
Communal apartments are apartments in which several unrelated persons or families live in isolated living rooms and share common areas such a kitchen, shower, and toilet. They generally lack privacy. Up until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, all communal apartments were state-owned public housing. With the start of privatization in Russia, such apartments started to gain ownership, often parts of it being privatized by different persons, which often led to litigations and abuse.
A gîte or gite is, typically, a holiday rental home in France, but there are many interpretations of the term 'gîte'. They range from a gîtes d'etape — a hostel, for walkers and cyclists — to a gîte rural, a holiday home in the country available for rent, often an accessory dwelling unit. 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.
Single-room occupancy (SRO) is a type of low-cost housing typically aimed at residents with low or minimal incomes, or single adults who like a minimalist lifestyle, who rent small, furnished single rooms with a bed, chair, and sometimes a small desk. SRO units are rented out as permanent residence and/or primary residence to individuals, within a multi-tenant building where tenants share a kitchen, toilets or bathrooms. SRO units range from 7 to 13 square metres. In some instances, contemporary units may have a small refrigerator, microwave, or sink.
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.
Room and board is a phrase describing a situation in which, in exchange for money, labour or other considerations, a person is provided with a place to live as well as meals on a comprehensive basis. It commonly occurs as a fee at higher educational institutions, such as colleges and universities; it also occurs in hotel-style accommodation for short stays.
A rooming house, also called a "multi-tenant house", is a "dwelling with multiple rooms rented out individually", in which the tenants share kitchen and often bathroom 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 a living room or dining room. Rooming houses in this way are similar to group homes and other roommate situations. 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, subject to the applicable minimum length of stay imposed by the company.
Multifamily residential, also known as multidwelling unit (MDU)) 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 (side-by-side units), or stacked on top of each other (top and bottom units). Common forms include apartment building and condominium, where typically the units are owned individually rather than leased from a single building owner. Many intentional communities incorporate multifamily residences, such as in cohousing projects.
In a building or ship, a room is any enclosed space within a number of walls to which entry is possible only via a door or other dividing structure. The entrance connects it to either a passageway, another room, or the outdoors. The space is typically large enough for several people to move about. The size, fixtures, furnishings, and sometimes placement of the room within the building or ship 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 - for example a sink. They are found in studio apartments, some motel and hotel rooms, college dormitories, office buildings, furnished basements, or bedrooms in shared houses. New York City building code defines a kitchenette as a kitchen of less than 7.4 m2 (80 ft2) of floor space.
Residential buildings in Poland are fundamentally divided into two main categories: single-family buildings (houses), and multi-family buildings. The former are meant to house only a small number of people, either one or a few families, while the latter are built with larger amounts of people living in their own separate areas of the same building in mind. There are also a few sub-categories, like multi-family houses, which can house multiple families, but don't have separate flats inside, and don't usually have separate entrances to the building. According to a 2010 survey: 41% of Poles live in single-family detached houses, 40% live in multi-family blocks of flats, 9% live in multi-family tenements, 7% live in multi-family houses, 3% live in single-family terraced houses, and 1% live in other types of buildings.
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.
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 gosiwon, a similar form of single-room housing in Korea.
