Designing a Home with Georgian Architecture | Sims Hilditch - Sims Hilditch (2024)

FAQs

What is the typical layout of a Georgian house? ›

- Design Features of Georgian Architecture -

These houses typically have a large central main body, smaller hyphens (connectors between the main body and wings), and symmetrical wings. Floor plans are most commonly two rooms deep and are one or two stories tall, with pitched roofs.

This proportion roughly equates to 1.618 to 1 and has been used in classical architecture for thousands of years, making its way into Georgian homes over the centuries.

If you ask most people to sketch a Georgian house, it will most likely be a rectangle with a door in the center, double-hung windows, a hipped roof and brick.

Unlike the earlier neoclassical designs of the Jacobean and Stuart periods, which still held on to the medieval-inspired central living space for heating and construction, Georgian houses were built around multiple rooms with specific functions.

Within the interiors, Georgian colour schemes and particularly Georgian paints embraced warm earthy tones. Rich shades of ochre, sienna, and terracotta were frequently employed to evoke a sense of warmth and comfort. On the walls, they created a cozy atmosphere within the living spaces.

Internally Victorian homes have high ceilings and large windows and layout within a long and thin footprint much smaller than Georgian homes. Victorian homes are typically one room wide, with a narrow hallway leading off into the different rooms, two up, two down with just two rooms on each floor.

Georgian architecture features pared-down Romanesque details including classical columns, decorative ironwork, and design motifs like ribbon, husks, and urns. Americans took these ornate design features and simplified them, making them the perfect match for the idyllic middle-class household.

The Georgian Period

Broadly speaking it covers the 18th century and is generally identified by very simple facades; buildings were designed in symmetry and often appeared quite plain. They were usually built with brick and stone and have sash windows.

A classic Georgian home is square or rectangular, made of brick, and features symmetrical windows, shutters, and columns. “Grand entrances were often embellished with pediments, arches, and columns, and interior spaces featured high ceilings, window headers, and crown molding,” says Muniz.

What does a Federal style house look like? ›

A structure designed in the Federal style was usually square or rectangle-shaped with a hipped roof. Contrary to the exterior of the building, the interior rooms were often shaped octagonally.

The style was revived in the late 19th century in the United States as Colonial Revival architecture and in the early 20th century in Great Britain as Neo-Georgian architecture; in both it is also called Georgian Revival architecture.

Georgian houses are characterized by their: Rigid symmetry in building mass as well as window and door placement. Brick, stone, or stucco (brick is most predominantly used) Hip roofs, sometimes with dormers.

Georgian architecture was widely disseminated in the English colonies during the Georgian era. American buildings of the Georgian period were very often constructed of wood with clapboards; even columns were made of timber, framed up, and turned on an oversized lathe.

Symmetry and proportion are two of the most fundamental principles in a Georgian aesthetic. The Georgians were great subscribers to mathematical ratios when determining their approach to space. You can expect to see buildings erected in precise cuts of stonework that follow the same form throughout.