Talk:Semi-detached

From PNA/Architecture

 * Semi-detached -- needs some historical & sociological data, and also a picture. Anyone living in a semi-detached, please go ahead. Wikikiwi 22:14, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Agree with above. Any houseagent's advertisement will furnish images. Alexander Harvey, architect of Cadbury's village at Bourneville from 1900 might be a good chap to research - many of his Arts and Crafts motifs survive in the middle-upper income model suburban semis of the interwar period. The speculative cheaper building of the late 1920s and mid thirties also draws on Bournville at several removes, and on Art Deco.

I don't see the relevance of the elder Shaw, and the younger one needs a bit of evidence. Curiously, the Arts and Crafts influence worked side by side with a rural Georgian revival from models (later) documented by Thomas Sharp, in, for example, the council houses built by West Bromwich Corporation in the later 1920s and early 1930s, which owed their internal planning to Bourneville and their exteriors to Georgian models. Georgian models also influenced some of the Wythenshawe housing of the 1930s.Delahays (talk) 13:16, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Duplex
A duplex is a building with two units, this article desribes a twin. (Source: Webster, describing a duplex as "a 2-family house.")


 * Duplexes here almost always fit this description: "pairs of houses built side by side as units sharing a party wall and usually in such a way that each house's layout is a mirror image of its twin," which is what this article describes. Sometimes they're not exact mirror images, but usually pretty close. Elf | Talk 23:36, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

In New York, a duplex means an apartment on 2 levels (a triplex is on 3). A house attached on one side is a semi-attached or semi-detached house. Alexisr 06:56 03 January 2006 (UTC)

I lived in Canada (Kitchener, Ontario) from 1993 to mid-1997. We lived in a semi-detached house (two storeys and a basement). Everyone called houses of this sort "semi-detached" or "semis" — contrary to what the article text suggests, no one in our area ever called them "duplexes". Note that, in Canada, the prefix "semi" is always pronounced "SEM-ee" — never "SEM-eye" as is common in the US. We had our own, separate basement; I never saw a "linked" semi and didn't even know any such thing existed anywhere until I saw this article. Richwales 04:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I also live in Canada (Montreal), and duplexes are only one apartment on top of another. Triplexes are in common use here (three apartments on top of the other). You can also have, eg, six-plexes (2 triplexes next to each other) or five-plexes (6plex where the bottom floor is just one apt). Semi-detached are only two places next to each other.

I live in Canada too, and we don't call them "duplexes" either. The word "Townhouse" is more common where I live - the GTA.

When I lived in Saskatoon, people did call them 'Duplexes', but in Calgary, I've mainly heard "semi-detached". What is this linked basement business? Does anyone have an example of this? I've never heard of it. --Churowa 18:07, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I am from Ohio. I used to live in what was rented to me as a "duplex". It had a living room and an eat in-kitchen on the first floor, two bedrooms and a bath on the top floor, and an unfinished basement. My neighbors had a mirror image of my apartment on the other side of the wall. I have never heard of something like that reffered to as a "semi", or as anything else other then duplex/triplex/quadplex. Where I come from a townhouse is more then 4 units up and down in a building, or more then 4 flat (or 'garden' style units). Really though, why are there seprate articles for semi-detached and duplex? Maybe I am wrong, but after reading both of these they seem like the same thing. As far as a photo, let me look around, I might have one of my old place, although it might only be of my side.... -tash
 * I live in Québec. Here, people would look at you funny if you were to call a semi-detached a duplex, because we have a ton of duplexes which are one unit made up of the ground floor and basement, and another unit on the second floor. I would argue that it is fully justified to keep two separate words for these types of buildings, because they have completely different potentials in terms of ownership. A semi-detached is essentially a detached home that just happens to share a wall with its neighbor. Though they are usually built together, you could destroy one and retain the other, and most of these are individually sold to different owners. A duplex with two apartments one on top of each other is completely different, they share 4 walls, a basement, a roof, a front yard and a back yard. The units cannot be owned separately, at best they can be co-owned (condo). This means that the buyer of a duplex has to become a landlord for one or both units. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.221.36.36 (talk) 14:50, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Duplex vs. twin seems to vary by region in the US
I clicked discussion to post that what's described as a "duplex" in the article is actually a "twin" in the US, at least the northeastern part. I'll just add my support, that here in the Philadelphia area (and other places I've been in this region) semi-detached housing is not uncommon and is always referred to as a twin. However, I've read discussions with Americans from other parts of the country (South and Midwest, I believe) who would call semi-detached housing a "duplex". It would be nice to get a source for this. Contemplative 04:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

British 1930s 3-bed semi
It would be nice to also include a photo of one of these, since they are the archetypal semi in the UK. The current photo, although possibly having historical interest, does not look like the typical semi in the UK. 80.2.205.119

merge with duplex (building)
As a look in some dictionaries shows(,,, "duplex" is a synonym for a semi-detached house in certain English-speaking countries, but it is also used to refer to apartments. The comment about Boston is apparently a joke/vandalism. --Espoo 14:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I would like to formally propose that Duplex (building) be merged into this article. It seems that while there is some regional variation, the subject is essentially the same. FWIW, In Calgary, Alberta, while duplex is used colloquially to refer to semi-detached buildings, the Calgary Land Use Bylaw distinguishes the two—a duplex is one unit over another and a semi-detached is one unit beside one another. If general useage was this clear, I would suggest keeping the two articles separate. As it is, we should have one article that tries to describe the terms and their meaning. --Jrsnbarn (talk) 14:37, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I concur. The two terms are substantially synonymous. Quokly (talk) 11:10, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Agree BUT we should note that in America (and increasingly in Australia) the term duplex is being used for semi-detached dwellings. I don't know if there is a term for two-storey apartments in those places, apart from townhouses (as they're rare). Nick (talk) 14:20, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

"Disagree' A double house is commonly misrepresented as a duplex in suburban enviroments, but a duplex is usually made of two flats one above the other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.89.77.182 (talk) 00:35, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Now that I have done some research on Duplex (building) with regards to Urban Planning, I now disagree with my own merger proposal. There seems to be enough information to suggest that duplex is a different idea than semi-detached as the latter is only sometimes included in the definition of the former and often has its own specific meaning. --Jrsnbarn (talk) 17:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Partial agree - merge all text refering to the form of building that consists of two vertically-divided houses sharing a party wall to Semi-detached. Rewrite duplex (building) to cover only the form of building that is a horizontally-divided apartment spread over more than one floor (usually with an internal staircase). I would remark that the term "duplex apartment" is also used in the United Kingdom to refer to this form of construction where, although quite unusual, it is not unheard-of. DWaterson (talk) 00:53, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

UK section
I think we should get rid of the sentence "During the house price boom in the years to 2004 many UK property developers found they could create value by demolishing semi-detached houses and building two detached houses on the same site, often with a very narrow gap between the new units." if no reference can be found. I have never seen this or even heard of it happening. While no doubt it must have happened somewhere, "many" is impossibly vague and misleading as the total number demolished must have been a tiny fraction of the total. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.32.72.129 (talk) 20:25, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I propose amending the structure of the article so that the 'History' heading is abolished and the material in it is transferred to 'United Kingdom'. At the same time the sentence referring to the Shaws could be removed. A minor edit would remove 'In the U.K.' from the beginning of the sentence about house sales in 2008. Finally I could add a picture of semi-detached housing which I took yesterday. Chrisemms (talk) 11:47, 13 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Agreed. There should history section but only if someone can find a reference for where the semi originated. It may well be that it was in the UK but we need a reference for that. There should also be a picture of a typical semi at the beginning of the article rather than the rather untypical one that's used now. I've been meaning to take one myself but if you already have one please go ahead. Richerman (talk) 19:59, 13 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The suggestion that the History section should start with the origin of the semi-detached house is an interesting challenge, as nothing has been written on it, so what I could contribute would smack too much of research, one of the 'No's of Wikipedia. I would welcome the advice of an oldie on this (I presume that is the opposite of newbie!). There are references in documents accessible on the internet such as Old Bailey Proceedings to 'double houses', the earliest of which is a will of a Londoner in 1660 (See: http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/g-s-gilbert-sidney-parry/genealogical-abstracts-of-parry-wills-proved-in-the-perogative-court-of-canterb-rra/page-7-genealogical-abstracts-of-parry-wills-proved-in-the-perogative-court-of-canterb-rra.shtml; accessed 6 October 2011). Although I have gathered sufficient original material to convince that a double house was what we would call a semi-detached house, I expect that for an encyclopedia such as Wikipedia all that I could legitimately do is to refer briefly to 'double houses', without making the connection explicit. Chrisemms (talk) 13:56, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Wordwide view tag
I see User:I dream of horses has decided to deface this article with a tag to say that the article doesn't represent a wordlwide view because it doesn't have examples from non English speaking countries. My answer to that is wp:sofixit. In my experience these lazy tags sit above articles for years on end and serve no useful purpose. If you feel there is something missing from the article then go and find the information and add it. Are semi-detached houses used in non-English speaking countries - if so where are we going to find that information? I don't think anyone else is going to go looking for the information just because you think they should. You will note it says on the tag "discuss the issue on the talk page". That means it's incumbent upon you to start off a discussion and say why you think this information is missing. For instance, have you been to lots of non-English speaking countries and seen semi-detached houses there? If not, maybe they are only a feature of the countries already mentioned in the article. Richerman ''  (talk) 17:34, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I put up templates on articles because I lack the research and study skills necessary to make extensive changes to content. I honestly don't know where to look, online or offline.
 * I don't put a discussion on the talk page, because it's tedious for me to check the talk page every day, and I often forget to do so. I'm not sure if this flaw of mine is entirely fixable. I truly do forget to check! Add to the fact that people often don't read the talk pages of little-known, little-watched articles, and I've basically decided it isn't worth it to do so. I dream of horses (T) @ 04:39, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, but I also have a terrible memory so I just put the talk page on on my watchlist and check that each time I log on. If you read the documentation for the tag you used it says:

As a courtesy to other editors and as a means of respecting their time, and also as a means of maximizing the likelihood that your concerns will be addressed, you should initiate a talk section detailing your concerns when hanging any maintenance tag. Without such explanations, it may be difficult for editors to understand what concerned you and to figure out whether subsequent changes have addressed your concerns...If you do not explain your concerns on the article's talk page, you may expect this tag to be promptly and justifiably removed as "unexplained" by the first editor who happens to not understand why you added this tag.


 * If, however, an article is little-known or little-watched no-one is likely to see any tags you put on either so they will just sit there forever. I will leave the tag there for a week and if no-one responds I will remove it. Richerman ''   (talk) 12:20, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Title
Shouldn't this be at Semi-detached housing? Lots of things are semi-detached. 216.8.175.138 (talk) 13:45, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Love and attention
I suspect that this page is being ignored by most editors as there is so much wrong. I stepped by while looking for references, and floor plans for Council house- which has to be sorted first. Brunskill give references to mediaeval semi-detached cottages in Traditional Buildings of Britain but that is a start. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 12:23, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Look, someone has to start somewhere. So I will have a go and leave it in a state where others can decide what to call it- and whether to redefine it as a UK article linking back to a disamb page. I will be relying heavily on the references already in the article : The Development of English Semi-detached Dwellings During the Nineteenth Century Authors: Pamela Lofthouse  http://doi.org/10.5334/pia.404. I will start by destroying unreferenced text and speculation, then reverse the structure. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 21:15, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

The history section has been expanded- missing refs to come from council house and its relatives. Clem Rutter (talk) 02:38, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I've had to revert your changes en masse as they just aren't an improvement. There's far too much general stuff on 19th-century housing in Britain, which is excellent, but not for here. Much of it should go to Housing in the United Kingdom, which has no history section at all, and/or Public housing in the United Kingdom. Meanwhile Real estate in the United Kingdom needs merging somewhere.  I must say, it was rather bad manners to start such massive changes 30 minutes after my last edit, with only a 3 minute warning!  The article is, and should remain, a global one, and by using only one main source you have unbalanced it, temporally, socially and geographically. It is an essentially architectural article about a type of house plan, and should remain so. The lead was far too short, the section sequence illogical and eccentric, and so on. Johnbod (talk) 13:20, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, you have reverted me, and I will let you run with it - please let me know when you have finished. But what I say above still stands. I must say this in particular shows some nerve, given how far off this topic much of your stuff is. I'd urge you consider better locations for this useful material, as suggested above. Johnbod (talk) 13:28, 21 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I missed the three minutes bit- sorry about that. I also missed your first comment before reverting - I blame that on reallife interfering. Now in general- everything you criticise I basically agree with but it is the only way I can see to turn the article into something useful-  so at the moment it is detail heavy. Basically there are two of us doing any editing on this article and in a months time I imagine this article will be a lot shorter- and other articles will benefit from the text, I will not want to defend anything if you know a better way. (Incidently your Blackheath piece that I efn ed, I had already restored to its glory in a later edit.)


 * The SemiD form is primarily a UK form, caused and promoted by different factors and I have no referenced information on how these factors influenced the development in the colonies, the US and Europe. The factors are different in London and the rest of the UK. I don't see a need to stifle the article by trying to make the whole article accommodate duplex, which I assume was parked here in prehistory. The ground plan of a semiD is dependant on age- closely mirroring that of an equivalent terraced until the street layout was liberalised under the Addison Act, I am short of CC illustrations of ground plans, I had to draw a complex svg for the article on Pre-regulation terraced houses in the UK- and if needs be that must be the solution.  Clem Rutter (talk) 14:18, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Message of welcome on User talk:Arjayay- reporting to keep the discussion together.  Clem Rutter (talk) 18:50, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Rambling, too technical?
A lot of research has gone into this page, but it's not ideal for a cogent overview of the subject. The History section is very long and detailed, with convoluted and occasionally archaic language. I've made numerous small changes to grammar, spelling and syntax without substantially altering the text. But I find that the really useful statements (eg. " They built double cottages as a means of reducing cost," "Semi-detached houses first began to be planned systematically in late 18th-century Georgian architecture," "After the Second World War, there was a chronic shortage of houses") are buried here and there among among wordy and overly technical ones (eg. "Estate villages followed vernacular patterns," "The Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 (Addison Act) incorporated those recommendations including one that allowed for Radburn style estate layout").

The wording often presumes the reader is already familiar with the subject (eg. "At Bournville in 1879 the Cadbury development started with a detached house for the manager," "The examples of Bournville, and Port Sunlight were seized by Ebenezer Howard and became key models for the Garden City movement," "The model villages in Lancashire came later"), and each section starts somewhere other than the logical beginning. For example, the 'Housing the Urban Working Classes' launches straight into a general discussion about population shifts and societal restructuring without really signposting where it's going. It really needs to start out with a simple sentence explaining that there was a need for more, and cheaper, housing.

I don't know anywhere near enough about the subject to take this on myself, but I hope someone will consider trimming some of the detail, minimising superfluous technical detail, and making this a readable and accessible overview of the subject. Sadiemonster (talk) 17:47, 30 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the edits and comments. It is indeed a massive topic and I do tread carefully to accurately reflect the sources trying to avoid OR. If you look back at the article in 2013 it was in a sorry state- the semi-D is the principal housing type in middle England and appears to be a rarity elsewhere but we had one editor demanding a a more global approach and equal prominence for other countries, back then there were merger suggestions and no details. The article was written backwards timewise- and I avoided the temptation to delete early off focus work- so your description 'rambling' is fair. Looking at it today I can see it is underlinked, or the link should be repeated for readers who are just reading one paragraph. But too technical- no. I haven't started to add the heavy weight technical detail such as floor pans, regional differences in land availability and the individual styles of individual mass builders complying with building regs and standards. I still haven't fully mined Burnett and I am looking for other sources. Time is the limiting factor. I believe that all articles have a life cycle- stub to B and over long. Then we float sections to become new articles and aim for the perfect FA but we are not their yet. It would be really useful if you could look at each paragraph individually and comment on them- an article can always be strengthen by cooperation and I could be accused of being too close- I'll have a go at a few more links. -ClemRutter (talk) 20:05, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quick response, ClemRutter. I know the article has come a long way, and like I said, it's been well-researched and there's a lot of good information there, it just needs reorganising. I'll try to find the time to put together some suggestions for you. We probably have different definitions of "technical." You clearly have knowledge of the history of architecture - I don't, and I felt that the way the article is written presumes a certain level of knowledge that I don't have. Certainly floor plans would be a lot more technical for someone acquainted with the subject matter - but for the average reader, it would help if more general, explanatory information was prioritised over secondary detail. For example, the sentence "The Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 (Addison Act) incorporated those recommendations including one that allowed for Radburn style estate layout" should perhaps be replaced by a simple sentence explaining that there was a need for economical housing after WWI. In the 'Housing the Rural Working Classes' section, you get 3/4 of the way through the paragraph before you get to the point: "landowners...built double cottages as a means of reducing cost." That sentence could be shifted to the beginning. I'll have another look at this just from a readability angle if I can find the time. Thanks again, Sadiemonster (talk) 12:33, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Merger discussions
The suggestion is to merge in Duplex (building), paired home
 * Oppose for the very reasons I gave on 21 February 2016 (UTC) above. ClemRutter (talk) 16:07, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose due to the variable meanings of "duplex" - but is this the right place? Discussion also seems ongoing at the other page, though the notice points here. Johnbod (talk) 16:28, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
 * See. Talk:Duplex (building) ClemRutter (talk) 17:34, 3 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Oppose The Duplex article is about something else and the paired homw article needs deleting. I'll add the Duplex article to See also. Richerman    (talk) 23:25, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose. In Canada, semi-detached qualifies a building sharing an outside wall with another building, and has nothing to do with the concept of duplex that means two independent housing units in a given residential building. --Laddo (talk) 21:27, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Support Because regardless of how the two units are attached to each other, they still comprise two separate housing units that share one structure. --SpiritedMichelle (talk) 22:30, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

"often abbreviated to semi-D"
I've lived in the UK my whole life and I have never heard the term "semi-D", nor encountered it before I read this page. Is it common elsewhere? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.185.53.154 (talk) 12:29, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Zapped. The problem is the word often- it may be Estate-agent speak- but no longer current. --ClemRutter (talk) 16:05, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

High UK focus
this article focuses a lot on the UK. Why is the article primarily about UK semi-detacheds? Serperior 1245, a Pokemon, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Doctor who nerd 01:21, 13 August 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Serperior 1245 (talk • contribs)

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