The Life and Death of Residential Room Types: A Study of Swedish Building Plans, 1750–2010

Abstract

While the study of building types is a well-known and relatively active research field, the topic of room types is less explored. This article takes a broad approach to spatial categorization, enabling the examination of different types of spaces over longer periods. How do different room types evolve and die? How do the different residential room types relate to each other? Do they act alone or do they follow each other over time? The article looks at the particular evolution and development of Swedish residential room types and is based on the study of plans of 2,340 Swedish buildings from about 1750 to 2010. Six themes emerged from this study: thresholds of birth and extinction, abruptive change, the relation between absent and present room types, contagious types, different temporal scales and the stabilization of prototypical sets.