Terraced house

A terrace or terraced house (UK) or townhouse (US) is a type of medium-density housing which first started in 16th century Europe with a row of joined houses sharing side walls. In the United States and Canada these are sometimes known as row houses or row homes.

Terrace housing can be found worldwide, though it is quite common in Europe and Latin America, and many examples can be found in the United Kingdom, Belgium, United States, Canada, and Australia. The Place des Vosges in Paris (1605–1612) is one of the early examples of the type. Although in early larger forms it was and still is used for housing the wealthy, as cities and the demands for ever smaller close housing grew, it regularly became associated with the working class. Terraced housing has increasingly become associated with gentrification in certain inner-city areas, drawing the attention of city planning.

Origins and nomenclature

Though earlier Gothic examples, such as Vicars' Close, Wells, are known, the alignment of the house fronts with the property line really began in the 16th century following Dutch and Belgian models and became called "row" houses in English. For example, in "Yarmouth Rows", Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, the building fronts all were right on the property line.

The term terrace was borrowed from garden terraces by British architects of the late Georgian period to describe streets of houses whose uniform fronts and uniform height created a stylish ensemble rather than a mere "row" of similar homes. Townhouses (or townhomes) are generally two- to three-story structures that share a wall with a neighbouring unit.