What are these types of houses called

scottishblondie

davidmcn wrote: »

It might depend in which part of the world it is. In Scotland we would call ground floor flats with their own front door "main door flats", but there isn't a special name for a block which happens to include them.

I would call that "4 in a block" or "cottage flats". To me a main door flat is the ground floor of a tenement.

davidmcn

Doozergirl wrote: »

I lived in one like the OP drawing as a child and it was called a maisonette. It had its own staircase inside

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Maisonettes, as they have their own front doors.

This is another regionalism (or nationalism perhaps) - Scottish maisonettes are duplex flats, but the English use it for flats with their own front door.

scottishblondie wrote: »

I would call that "4 in a block" or "cottage flats". To me a main door flat is the ground floor of a tenement.

4 in a block / cottage flats / quarter villa all suggest to me that every flat has its own private entrance, not like the OP's example where the upper flats have a communal stair. This seems more like a tenement (with main door flats), but fewer upper floors than we would consider standard (and to confuse things further, in Scottish legal jargon a "tenement" is any sort of block of flats, no matter the height or style).

Spir4

Thanks for all the replies. I ask this just out of curiosity
I thought it were maisonettes as well, but then the 2 upper living units do have a communal staircase so maybe just the bottom units are maisonettes and the top units flats?
Then again, the front door leading to the staircase originally didn't have doorbells, letterboxes, not even a lock. So people, the mailman, ... would just walk in, go up, and then arrive at the actual front door of the upper living unites where the mailbox was, the doorbell, ... So back then I'd say the upper units were maisonettes as well.
Now however that front door does have a lock, mailboxes, and wireless doorbells. Still maisonettes?

Spir4

Oh and it's in Scotland by the way

davidmcn

Spir4 wrote: »

Then again, the front door leading to the staircase originally didn't have doorbells, letterboxes, not even a lock.

Most "traditional" tenements were originally built with open close mouths too - doesn't make the flats "maisonettes" (which, as discussed above, isn't what anybody in Scotland would call them anyway!) or "main door". I'm not aware of any special name for this design, it's just a block of flats. In practice everything works in the same way as a standard 3 or 4 storey tenement.

Spir4

davidmcn wrote: »

Most "traditional" tenements were originally built with open close mouthes too - doesn't make the flats "maisonettes" (which, as discussed above, isn't what anybody in Scotland would call them anyway!) or "main door". I'm not aware of any special name for this design, it's just a block of flats. In practice everything works in the same way as a standard 3 or 4 storey tenement.

So it doesn't matter that the bottom units have no communal parts whatsoever, they're flats as well?

davidmcn

Spir4 wrote: »

So it doesn't matter that the bottom units have no communal parts whatsoever, they're flats as well?

They do have communal parts - the outside walls, the roof, any shared service media, any shared private ground etc will all normally be communal among all the flats in the block. Anything with another house above or below you is a flat.

jimbog

I would definitely get a survey done. Some of those walls have structurally issues

Spir4

Alright thanks for the replies!

Albala

I lived in what I'd call a tenement for a while when I worked in Scotland, my boss called the property a 'stair'.