Free Essays on Housing

Native Americans ! Housing and Construction Some Native American houses that appear simple, such as the Inuit igloo or the Florida Seminole chikee, are quite sophisticated: The igloo (Inuit for â€Å"house†), usually made of hide or sod over a wood or whalebone frame, is a dome with a sunken entrance that traps heat indoors but allows ventilation; the chikee, naturally air-conditioned, consists of a thatch roof over an open platform. The tepee of the Plains peoples constitutes efficient housing for people who must move camp to hunt; tepees are easily portable and quickly erected or taken down, and an inner liner hung from midway up the tepee allows ventilation without drafts, so that the enclosed space is comfortable even in winter. Some peoples in cold climates that were well supplied with wood, such as the peoples of Tierra del Fuego and the Subarctic Athabascan-language peoples, relied on windbreaks with good fires in front, rather than on tents. Many other peoples spent cold weather in dome-shaped houses that were sunk well into the ground for insulation. Mesoamerican and Andean peoples constructed buildings of stone and cement as well as of wood and adobe. Public buildings and the houses of the upper class were usually built on raised-earth platforms, with a large number of rooms arranged around atria and courtyards. Eskimos Igloos (Inuit iglu, â€Å"house†) are of two kinds: walrus or sealskin tents for summer, and huts or houses for winter. Winter houses are usually made of stone, with a driftwood or whalebone frame, chinked and covered with moss or turf. The entrance is a long, narrow passage, just high enough to admit a person crawling on hands and knees. During long journeys some Canadian Inuit build winter houses of snow blocks piled up into a dome shape. Such snow houses, rare in Greenland and unknown in Alaska, were once permanent winter houses of the Inuit of central and eastern Canada. In the 20th century, however, ... Free Essays on Housing Free Essays on Housing Native Americans ! Housing and Construction Some Native American houses that appear simple, such as the Inuit igloo or the Florida Seminole chikee, are quite sophisticated: The igloo (Inuit for â€Å"house†), usually made of hide or sod over a wood or whalebone frame, is a dome with a sunken entrance that traps heat indoors but allows ventilation; the chikee, naturally air-conditioned, consists of a thatch roof over an open platform. The tepee of the Plains peoples constitutes efficient housing for people who must move camp to hunt; tepees are easily portable and quickly erected or taken down, and an inner liner hung from midway up the tepee allows ventilation without drafts, so that the enclosed space is comfortable even in winter. Some peoples in cold climates that were well supplied with wood, such as the peoples of Tierra del Fuego and the Subarctic Athabascan-language peoples, relied on windbreaks with good fires in front, rather than on tents. Many other peoples spent cold weather in dome-shaped houses that were sunk well into the ground for insulation. Mesoamerican and Andean peoples constructed buildings of stone and cement as well as of wood and adobe. Public buildings and the houses of the upper class were usually built on raised-earth platforms, with a large number of rooms arranged around atria and courtyards. Eskimos Igloos (Inuit iglu, â€Å"house†) are of two kinds: walrus or sealskin tents for summer, and huts or houses for winter. Winter houses are usually made of stone, with a driftwood or whalebone frame, chinked and covered with moss or turf. The entrance is a long, narrow passage, just high enough to admit a person crawling on hands and knees. During long journeys some Canadian Inuit build winter houses of snow blocks piled up into a dome shape. Such snow houses, rare in Greenland and unknown in Alaska, were once permanent winter houses of the Inuit of central and eastern Canada. In the 20th century, however, ...