What Should A House Look Like?

We all know what a house should look like. It is square or rectangular, has a triangular roof, with a window and a door side by side.

You have seen it hundreds of times throughout your life and have probably drawn several of this style house many times as a child growing up.

Though our concept of what an ideal house looks like may change as we get older, it seems that many of us still hold on to a reasonably conforming mould of what houses should look like.

Style

Our lives and societies are heavily governed by style and fashion. We follow the trends of society. From our clothing to our hairstyles.

It is therefore no surprise that we do the same with our home designs.

We go through phases where we see something that we like, and we want to follow the same pattern.

Back in the day, I cannot tell you how many times I have heard someone say they like bay windows. And not just any bay window, they wanted the traditional ones with the splayed sides. They were everywhere. No middle-class home was complete without one.

We are influenced by what we see. Hence, very often design features from the house next door can end up in our house, and in the house next to that, and next to the next one next to….you get the idea.

There isn’t anything wrong with borrowing ideas from the house next door. However, the style of your home should be influenced by more than what you see in the neighbourhood, or across the country.

I think homeowners and design professionals should constantly be challenging the established norms. You should always be thinking of ways to improve on what is there.

Available Products And Materials

Our home design is often influenced by the products and materials that are available on the market.

For a while, the style of windows being used in Barbados, where pretty much the same on every house. They were those sash windows with mullions and they characterised what houses looked like.

Items such as windows, doors and roof coverings can have a strong influence on how your house looks. Change any or all of these and your house can look different.

However, we often use the most popular products on the market. Cost may also be an important factor with this. If they are a ton of the same or similar product out there, the price may tend to be lower as well.

I don’t think you should specify more expensive products that are outside of your budget just to be different from the house next door. However, I think we could explore using familiar products and materials in unfamiliar ways.

Tropical Response

Our climate has an overwhelming influence on our lives and how we live. It dictates many aspects of our style and culture.

Faux fur coats and heavy woollen sweaters tend not to be part of our wardrobes in the tropics, though these may be fashionable in other parts of the world. They would make us too hot in a warm, tropical climate.

The style of our houses should respond similarly. I believe that we should use materials, products and applications that suit our climate.

For example, we often see houses with large exterior walls and a few small windows. Sometimes I wonder if it would not be better to inverse the proportions. Hence, have more window openings than solid wall, to promote more natural ventilation. But that would just look weird….or would it. Many contemporary homes already do this. We just need to make the windows operable rather than fixed as with applications in temperate countries.

In the tropics, our homes should keep out the rain and remain cool in high daytime temperatures. They should also be built strong and resilient against tropical storms and hurricanes.

Designing for the tropical climate should be a major influence on what our houses look like.

Cultural Identity

We have our peculiarities depending on which part of the world we live in.

The internet, television and other media platforms have exposed us to other influences from around the world. Many of the larger countries like the USA, UK and other European countries have heavy influences on small tropical nations like ours.

Our unique ways of interacting with each other and our environment has and continues to change as a result. Art, craft and even cuisine that identified us is being slowly replaced with more popular international items. How many of us have seen the same generic souvenir across each Caribbean island, with a stuck-on label that has the name of the country and a “Made In Taiwan” stamp at the back.

I think it is important to maintain a connection with our traditions and our cultural relationships. The way we live and our intrinsic values are important.

I am not suggesting that we remain stuck in the past, creating all vernacular houses and making everything look and function as it did a hundred years ago. Our societies need to progress with the advancement of technology. But I do believe we should try to maintain some connection with our intrinsic values and customs.

This could also influence how our houses look. The way we use our homes, our relationship with outdoor spaces and even our connection with the community are all important aspects and will influence how our homes are designed.

Conclusion

What a house looks like should probably depend on more than the house next door. Styles and prevailing trends could be part of it but it should also be dependent on other influences.

Our climate and environment are a major aspect of our homes. This along with how we live and interact with each other are all major factors that go into influencing the style and look of your home.

Global influences can not be overlooked or ignored but I think we should be careful not to take elements and ideas from other regions and transplant them into our own. We need to carefully consider how they function and respond to our context and environment.

I think we should also be less rigid with our notion of what a house should look like. We need not stick with stereotypical ideas of what a house is, how it functions and by extension how it looks.

Apart from the fundamental functions of a home such as providing protection and shelter from the elements, we could be more flexible with our thoughts on what a house should look like.

Featured image by Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay