A barn is an agricultural building usually on farms and used for various purposes. In North America, a barn refers to structures that house livestock, including cattle and horses, as well as equipment and fodder, and often grain. As a result, the term barn is often qualified e.g. tobacco barn, dairy barn, cow house, sheep barn, potato barn. In the British Isles, the term barn is restricted mainly to storage structures for unthreshed cereals and fodder, the terms byre or shippon being applied to cow shelters, whereas horses are kept in buildings known as stables. In mainland Europe, however, barns were often part of integrated structures known as byre-dwellings. In addition, barns may be used for equipment storage, as a covered workplace, and for activities such as threshing.
An igloo, also known as a snow house or snow hut, is a type of shelter built of suitable snow.
A tipi or tepee is a conical lodge tent that is distinguished from other conical tents by the smoke flaps at the top of the structure, and historically made of animal hides or pelts or, in more recent generations, of canvas stretched on a framework of wooden poles. The loanword came into English usage from the Dakota language and Lakota language.
A Nissen hut is a prefabricated steel structure originally for military use, especially as barracks, made from a 210° portion of a cylindrical skin of corrugated iron. It was designed during the First World War by the Canadian-American-British engineer and inventor Major Peter Norman Nissen. It was used also extensively during the Second World War and was adapted as the similar Quonset hut in the United States.
Lodge is originally a term for a relatively small building, often associated with a larger one.
Vernacular architecture is building done outside any academic tradition, and without professional guidance. It is not a particular architectural movement or style, but rather a broad category, encompassing a wide range and variety of building types, with differing methods of construction, from around the world, both historical and extant and classical and modern. Vernacular architecture constitutes 95% of the world's built environment, as estimated in 1995 by Amos Rapoport, as measured against the small percentage of new buildings every year designed by architects and built by engineers.
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 dugout or dug-out, also known as a pit-house or earth lodge, is a shelter for humans or domesticated animals and livestock based on a hole or depression dug into the ground. Dugouts can be fully recessed into the earth, with a flat roof covered by ground, or dug into a hillside. They can also be semi-recessed, with a constructed wood or sod roof standing out. These structures are one of the most ancient types of human housing known to archaeologists, and the same methods have evolved into modern "earth shelter" technology.
A Quonset hut is a lightweight prefabricated structure of corrugated galvanized steel with a semi-circular cross-section. The design was developed in the United States based on the Nissen hut introduced by the British during World War I. Hundreds of thousands were produced during World War II, and military surplus was sold to the public. The name comes from the site of their first deployment at Quonset Point at the Davisville Naval Construction Battalion Center in Davisville, Rhode Island.
A wigwam, wickiup, wetu (Wampanoag), or wiigiwaam is a semi-permanent domed dwelling formerly used by certain Native American tribes and First Nations people and still used for ceremonial events. The term wickiup is generally used to refer to these kinds of dwellings in the Southwestern United States and Western United States and Northwest Alberta, Canada, while wigwam is usually applied to these structures in the Northeastern United States as well as Ontario and Quebec in central Canada. The names can refer to many distinct types of Indigenous structures regardless of location or cultural group. The wigwam is not to be confused with the Native Plains tipi, which has a different construction, structure, and use.
A summer house or summerhouse is a building or shelter used for relaxation in warm weather. This would often take the form of a small, roofed building on the grounds of a larger one, but could also be built in a garden or park, often designed to provide cool shady places of relaxation or retreat from the summer heat. It can also refer to a second residence, usually located in the country, that provides a cool and relaxing home to live in during the summer, such as a vacation property.
A mountain hut is a building located high in the mountains, generally accessible only by foot, intended to provide food and shelter to mountaineers, climbers and hikers. Mountain huts are usually operated by an Alpine Club or some organization dedicated to hiking or mountain recreation. They are known by many names, including alpine hut, mountain shelter, mountain refuge, mountain lodge, and mountain hostel. It may also be called a refuge hut, although these occur in lowland areas too.
A bothy is a basic shelter, usually left unlocked and available for anyone to use free of charge. It was also a term for basic accommodation, usually for gardeners or other workers on an estate. Bothies are found in remote mountainous areas of Scotland, Northern England, Ulster and Wales. They are particularly common in the Scottish Highlands, but related buildings can be found around the world. A bothy was also a semi-legal drinking den on the Isle of Lewis. These, such as Bothan Eòrapaidh, were used until recent years as gathering points for local men and were often situated in an old hut or caravan.
The sod house or soddy was an often used alternative to the log cabin during frontier settlement of the Great Plains of Canada and the United States in the 1800s and early 1900s. Primarily used at first for animal shelters, corrals, and fences, if the prairie lacked standard building materials such as wood or stone, sod from thickly-rooted prairie grass was abundant, free, and could be used for house construction. Prairie grass has a much thicker, tougher root structure than a modern lawn.
A wilderness hut, bothy, backcountry hut, or backcountry shelter is a free, primitive mountain hut for temporary accommodation, usually located in wilderness areas, national parks and along backpacking and hiking routes. They are found in many parts of the world, such as Finland, Sweden, Norway, northern Russia, the Alps, the Pyrenees, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States. Huts are basic and unmanned, without running water.
Scottish Vernacular architecture is a form of vernacular architecture that uses local materials.
A shieling is a hut or collection of huts on a seasonal pasture high in the hills, once common in wild or sparsely populated places in Scotland. Usually rectangular with a doorway on the south side and few or no windows, they were often constructed of dry stone or turf. More loosely, the term may denote a seasonal mountain pasture for the grazing of cattle in summer. Seasonal pasturage implies transhumance between the shieling and a valley settlement in winter. Many Scottish songs have been written about life in shielings, often concerning courtship and love. The ruins of shielings are abundant landscape features across Scotland, particularly the Highlands.
A slab hut is a kind of dwelling or shed made from slabs of split or sawn timber. It was a common form of construction used by settlers in Australia and New Zealand during their nations' colonial periods.
The field of Indigenous architecture refers to the study and practice of architecture of, for and by Indigenous people. It is a field of study and practice in the United States, Australia, Aotearoa, Canada, Arctic area of Sápmi and many other countries where Indigenous people have a built tradition or aspire translate or to have their cultures translated in the built environment. This has been extended to landscape architecture, urban design, planning, public art, placemaking and other ways of contributing to the design of built environments. The term usually designates any culture-specific architecture: it covers both the vernacular architecture and contemporary architecture inspired by the enculture, even when the latter includes features brought from outside.
