The single house is an icon of historic Charleston, South Carolina. This design features a comparison of three scales of the single house featuring etched 140lb paper over mirror with a 12x16 black aluminum frame and clear glass. The glazing in the singles is cut to allow light to reflect through the windows.
The single house the vernacular architectural form of Charleston, defining its urban grid. It first appeared in the early eighteenth century and emerged as a favored residential form after the fire of 1740. The typical single house stands two or more stories in height and is built on a rectangular plan with its narrow end facing the street. Each floor has two rooms with a central stair-hall in between. Piazzas occupy the long wall facing the inside of the lot, and the chimneys are located on the opposite wall, in the rear of the house.
Architectural historians have devoted considerable study to the origins of the single house. The most common explanation holds that the form developed as a response to the hot and humid Lowcountry summers and the scarcity of space in the urban environment. The tall, slender profile allowed breezes to circulate freely across the broad piazzas and through the main rooms