Semi Detached houses

1. In Celebration of Our Semi Detached houses. By Professor Peter Larkham
Peter Larkham is speaking on semi-detached houses at the University of Birmingham today. This is
an invited 40th anniversary meeting of the Urban Morphology Research Group – from small
beginnings in the University, the UMRG has spurred development of the International Seminar on
Urban Form, and an international academic journal, Urban Morphology, of which Peter is Associate
Editor.
The semi is probably England’s most familiar house type – and at least 26 per cent of our houses are
semis – they were particularly popular during the massive expansion of industrial cities like
Birmingham in the inter-war period. They became so common, and their design son standardised,
that they became known as “universal plan” houses. But, as we now build higher-density residential
areas to be more sustainable – reducing resource use and the need to travel – developers are again
building semis.
Peter looks at the history of the semi – there are suggestions that there are early semis from the
late-medieval period (now in Spon Street, Coventry) but he particularly tries to use a form of analysis
developed by Italian urban morphologists (“typomorphology”) to study the development of building
form over time. Testing ideas and forms of analysis from one area or research group to another is a
particular concern for urban morphologists, as we try to learn from different disciplines and
academic traditions