A building should be considered a residential building when more than half of the floor surface is used for housing purposes. Other buildings should be considered non-residential. Two types of residential buildings can be distinguished:
- dwellings (residential buildings facing the ground): all types of houses (single-family houses, semi-detached houses, semi-detached houses, row houses, etc.), each of which has its own entrance directly from the floor surface;
- other residential buildings: comprising all residential buildings other than residential buildings facing the ground, as defined above.
Residential
Residential single-family buildings are most often called houses or houses. Residential buildings containing more than one housing unit are called duplexes, an apartment building to differentiate them from "individual" houses. A condominium is an apartment that the occupant owns instead of rents. Houses can also be built in pairs (semi-detached), on terraces where all but two of the houses have others on both sides; the apartments can be built around patios or as rectangular blocks surrounded by a piece of land of various sizes. Houses that were built as a single dwelling can be further divided into apartments or bedsitters; they can also be converted to another use, an office or a store.
Types of building can range from huts to multi-million dollar high-rise apartment blocks capable of housing thousands of people. Increased density of settlements in buildings (and the smallest distances between buildings) is often a response to high soil prices that result from many people who want to live near work or similar attractors. Other common building materials are brick, concrete or combinations of any of these with stone.
Residential buildings have different names to use depending on whether they are seasonal include vacation home (vacation home) or timeshare; size such as a cottage or large house; value as a hut or mansion; mode of construction, such as a wooden house or a mobile home; the proximity to the ground as the house covered with dirt, stilt house, or tree house. Also if residents are in need of special care, such as a nursing home, orphanage or prison; or in group homes such as barracks or dormitories.
Historically many people lived in communal buildings called long houses, smaller houses called houses of chance and houses combined with barns sometimes called house-barns. Buildings are defined as substantial and permanent structures, so other forms of housing such as houseboats, yurts and motor homes are homes, but not buildings.