Shotgun house layout1/17/2024 Worker’s Accommodation Building from James Campbell and Sons’ redicut homes catalogue. In such a way, the shotgun house can easily be described as vernacular housing, similar to the redi-cut timber worker’s cottages that arose in the early 20 th century in parts of Australia, particularly Queensland. Furthermore, the temporary nature of these boomtowns meant that the shotgun houses were built in a semi-prefabricated manner – they were moved to site in sections and bolted together or taken apart as needed. The use of locally and abundantly available materials (namely timber) meant that construction was relatively inexpensive (Carney, 1983 p.57). The shotgun form was adopted as its shape allowed for easy, quick construction that did not require particularly skilled labour to erect. Primarily, shotgun houses arose as a quick and cheap solution to the large influxes of people into these boomtowns, who subsequently found themselves without adequate housing upon arrival. The dissemination of the housing type through the south occurred through the migratory nature of the labour that was involved in such industries. The houses became a prominent part of the built environment most significantly in boomtowns involved in the rising industries of mining, lumbering, and petrol (Carney, 1983 p.57). The first, proposed by anthropologist John Vlach apprises the shotgun’s origin to 16 th century housing in West Africa, derived from the vernacular housing of Haitian refugees and slaves that arrived in the South in the early 19 th century. These houses were generally one storied, built from timber, and elevated on brick piers, although variations arose as needs and contexts changed.īasic shotgun house – plan and axonometric.Īs previously stated, two primary explanations have been proposed for the development of the shotgun typology. 12’ x 24’ or 3.5 x 7m), and did not include a hallway, requiring inhabitants to walk through each room to get from the front to the back (Holl, 1982 p36). According to Kniffen, a basic shotgun is characterised by a long, narrow house consisting of one room wide, one to three rooms deep, and a front facing gable with a porch (Carney, 1983 p.59).” The narrow form of the houses was generally double long as they were wide (approx. ![]() The shotgun house typology may be found in both rural and urban communities, and typically consists of a very similar plan. While the origins of its formation as a housing typology are unknown, two primary schools of thought have arisen: that it came about as a response to urban form, or, alternatively as a result of socio-economic influences. As a housing type, the shotgun peaked in popularity during the early 19 th century however there are indications that they existed much earlier in some form, and have further endured into the 21 st century. The shotgun house is common form of folk architecture found in the cultural landscape of the southern United States, most notably in the regions of Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma (Carney, 1983 p.57).
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