Types of Residential Buildings and Their Site Selection

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What is a Residential Building?

A residential building is defined as the building which provides more than half of its floor area for dwelling purposes. In other words, residential building provides sleeping accommodation with or without cooking or dining or both facilities.

Types of Residential Buildings

Residential buildings are divided into following types:

1. Individual houses or private dwellings
2. Lodging or rooming houses
3. Dormitories
4. Apartments
5. Hotels

1. Individual houses or Private dwellings

Individual houses or private dwellings are generally owned by members of a single family only. If more than one family residing in that building then it is called as multiple family private dwelling.

2. Lodging or Rooming Houses

Lodging or rooming houses are multiple or group of buildings which come under one management. In this case, Accommodation is provided for separately for different individuals on temporary or permanent basis.

3. Dormitories

Dormitories are another type of residential buildings, in which sleeping accommodation is provided together for different individuals. School hostels, military barracks come under this category.

4. Apartments

Apartments or flats are big buildings which consists separate dwellings for different families. Apartment will resides minimum three or more families living independently of each other.

5. Hotels

Hotels are just like lodging houses and also managed by single management but they provide accommodation primarily on temporary basis. inns, motels etc come under this category.

Site Selection for Residential Buildings

Selection of site for any building is a very important and experts job and should be done very very carefully by an experienced engineer. The requirements of site for buildings with different occupancies are different.Following are some of the important factors which should be considered while selecting site for any residence.

1. The site should be in fully developed area or in the area which has potential of development.
2. There should be good transport facilities such as railway, bus service, for going to office, college, market, etc.
3. Civic services such as water supply, drainage sewers, electric lines, telephone lines, etc. should be very near to the selected site so as to obtain their services with no extra cost.
4. Soil at site should not be of made up type as far as possible. The buildings constructed over such soils normally undergo differential settlement and sometimes become the cause of collapse. Cracks in buildings in such conditions, are quite common
5. The selected site should be large enough; both to ensure the building abundant light and air to prevent any over dominance by the neighboring buildings.
6. The ground water table at the site should not be very high.
7. Nearness of schools, hospitals, market, etc. are considered good for residential site but these facilities do not carry any significance in the selection site for other public buildings.
8. Good foundation soil should be available at responsible depth. This aspect saves quite a bit in the cost of the building.
9. The site should command a good view of landscape such a hill, river, lake, etc.
10. Residential house site should be located away from the busy commercial roads.
11. Residential site should not be located near workshops, factories, because such locations are subjected to continuous noise.
12. Orientation of the site also has some bearing on its selection. Site should be such in our country that early morning sun and late evening sun is accepted in the building in summer and maximum sun light is available in most of winter.