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10 Unique Houses From Around the WorldHouses types and styles vary greatly according to region, climate, culture and tradition

1. Earth House

This unique house is located in Switzerland. It is an earth house, an architectural style characterized by the use of natural terrain to help form the walls of a house. An earth house is usually set partiallyinto the ground and covered with thin growth, and is often intended to have a small ecologicalfootprint.

2. Rondavel

This pretty amazing house is called a rondavel, a traditional African-style house. They are usuallyround in shape and traditionally made with materials that can be locally obtained in raw form. Therondavel's walls are often constructed from stones. The mortar may consist of sand, soil, or somecombinations of these mixed with dung.

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The floor is finished with a processed dung mixture to make it smooth. The roof braces of arondavel are made out of tree limbs, which have been harvested and cut to length. The roof itself ismade out of thatch that is sewn to the wooden braces with rope made out of grass.

3. Shell House

One distinct house is the Shell house. It is the most original house in Mexico or maybe in the world.It is one of the most beautiful houses you will surely enjoy. It is located in Isla Mujeres northeast of Yucatan peninsula in the Caribbean Sea.

4. Rumah gadang

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Rumah gadang which means "big house", are the traditional homes of the Minangkabau. Thearchitecture, construction, internal and external decoration, and the functions of the house reflect theculture and values of the Minangkabau. A rumah gadang serves as a residence, a hall for familymeetings, and for ceremonial activities. With the Minangkabau society being matrilineal, the rumahgadang is owned by the women of the family who live there - ownership is passed from mother todaughter.

5. Toda Hut

The peculiar hut of a Toda Tribe of Nilgiris, India is noted for the decoration of the front wall, andthe very small door. The Toda people are a small pastoral community who live on the isolated

Nilgiri plateau of Southern India. Prior to the late eighteenth century, the Toda coexisted locallywith other communities, including the Badaga, Kota, and Kurumba, in a loose caste-like communityorganization in which the Toda were the top ranking.

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6. Korowai Tree House

This bizarre house is home to the bizarre tribe called the Korowai or also called the Kolufo. Theyare a people of southeastern Papua ( i.e., the southeastern part of the western part of New Guinea).Until the 1970s, they were unaware of the existence of any people besides themselves and someimmediately neighboring villages. Only a few of them have become literate thus far. They are oneof the few surviving peoples in the world that are thought to possibly still engage in cannibalism.Others dispute this, saying that these practices ended decades ago and that there have been noreported instances of cannibalism in over twenty years.

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7. Trulli House

Trulli houses, distinguished by conical store roof, are traditional in the southeastern region Apulia,Italy.

8. Palloza

A palloza is a traditional thatched house as found in the in Galicia, Spain. They are circular or oval,and about ten ortwenty meters in diameter. These houses are built to withstand severe winter weather at a typical altitude of 1,200 meters. The main structure is stone, and is divided internallyinto separate areas for the family and their animals, with separate entrances. The roof is conical,made from rye straw on a wooden frame. There is no chimney, the smoke from the kitchen fireseeps out through the thatch.

9. Farmhouse

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Earth sheltering is the architectural practice of using earth against building walls for externalthermal mass, to reduce heat loss, and to easily maintain a steady indoor air temperature. Earthsheltering is popular in modern times among advocates of passive solar and sustainable architecture,

but has been around for nearly as long as humans have been constructing their own shelter. The picture above is Earth covered farm houses located in Keldur, Iceland.

10. Crannog

A crannog is an artificial island, usually originally built in lakes, rivers and estuarine waters, andmost often used as an island settlement or dwelling place in prehistoric or medieval times. Thename itself may refer to a wooden platform erected on shallow floors, but few remains of this sorthave been found.