Semi-detached
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Semi-detached housing (often abbreviated to semi in the UK, Canada and Australia, as in "three-bedroom semi", and occasionally referred to as se-tenant houses) consists of pairs of houses built side-by-side or (less commonly) back-to-back, sharing a party wall and usually in such a way that each house's layout is a mirror image of its twin. This style of housing, although built throughout the world, is commonly seen as particularly symbolic of the suburbanisation of the United Kingdom and Ireland, or post-war homes in Central Canada. In New England, certain other parts of the United States, and most of Canada, this style is sometimes colloquially called a duplex; elsewhere, however, "duplex" refers to a building split into two flats/apartments (one above the other). The style is usually referred to in the mid-Atlantic (particularly Philadelphia) as a twin.
This type of housing can be thought of as being a half-way state between terraced or row housing and single-family detached homes. Terraced housing consists of continuous row houses with open spaces at the front and back, while semi-detached houses have front, rear and any one side open spaces, and individual detached houses have open spaces on all sides.
Cultural references
- "Semi-detached suburban Mr. James", written and performed by Manfred Mann, a song about a lost love marrying a man living in a small suburban house, released in 1966 (Fontana TF 757), reached No. 2 in the UK charts.
- "My Pink Half of The Drainpipe", written and performed by Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, satirizes neighborly relations and ownership of property, referring to the painting of only one half of the drainpipe that runs down the exact centre of the dividing line between properties
See also
