Editing House (section)

=== Middle Ages ===
In the [[Middle Ages]], the [[Manor house|Manor Houses]] facilitated different activities and events. Furthermore, the houses accommodated numerous people, including family, relatives, employees, servants and their guests.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Their lifestyles were largely communal, as areas such as the [[Great Hall]] enforced the custom of dining and meetings and the [[Solar (room)|Solar]] intended for shared sleeping beds.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/manor-house.htm |title=Manor House |publisher=Middle-ages.org.uk |date=May 16, 2007 |access-date=January 4, 2012 |archive-date=September 6, 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120906163033/http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/manor-house.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

During the 15th and 16th centuries, the [[Italian Renaissance architecture|Italian Renaissance Palazzo]] consisted of plentiful rooms of connectivity. Unlike the qualities and uses of the Manor Houses, most rooms of the [[palazzo]] contained no purpose, yet were given several doors. These doors adjoined rooms in which [[Robin Evans]] describes as a "matrix of discrete but thoroughly interconnected chambers."<ref name="ReferenceB">Evans, Robin "Translations from Drawing to Building: Figures, Doors and Passages" London: Architectural Associations Publications 2005</ref> The layout allowed occupants to freely walk room to room from one door to another, thus breaking the boundaries of [[privacy]]. 
:"Once inside it is necessary to pass from one room to the next, then to the next to traverse the building. Where passages and staircases are used, as inevitably they are, they nearly always connect just one space to another and never serve as general distributors of movement. Thus, despite the precise architectural containment offered by the addition of room upon room, the villa was, in terms of occupation, an open plan, relatively permeable to the numerous members of the household."<ref name="ReferenceB"/> Although very public, the open [[House plan|plan]] encouraged sociality and connectivity for all inhabitants.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

An early example of the segregation of rooms and consequent enhancement of privacy may be found in 1597 at the [[Beaufort House (Chelsea)|Beaufort House]] built in [[Chelsea, London]]. It was designed by English architect [[John Thorpe]] who wrote on his plans, "A Long Entry through all".<ref>Summerson, John "The Book Of Architecture of John Thorpe in Sir John Soane's museum: 40th Volume of the Walpole Society" England: The Society 1964</ref> The separation of the passageway from the room developed the function of the [[Corridor (architecture)|corridor]]. This new extension was revolutionary at the time, allowing the integration of one door per room, in which all universally connected to the same corridor. [[English people|English]] architect [[Sir Roger Pratt]] states "the common way in the middle through the whole length of the house, [avoids] the offices from one molesting the other by continual passing through them."<ref name="ReferenceC">Pratt, Sir Roger "Sir R. Pratt on Architecture" 1928</ref> [[Social hierarchies]] within the 17th century were highly regarded, as architecture was able to epitomize the servants and the upper class. More privacy is offered to the occupant as Pratt further claims, "the ordinary servants may never publicly appear in passing to and fro for their occasions there."<ref name="ReferenceC"/> This social divide between rich and poor favored the physical integration of the corridor into housing by the 19th century.

Sociologist [[Witold Rybczynski]] wrote, "the subdivision of the house into day and night uses, and into formal and informal areas, had begun."<ref>{{cite book |last=Rybczynski |first=Witold |author-link=Witold Rybczynski |title=Home: A Short History of An Idea |url=https://archive.org/details/homeshorthistory00rybc_006 |url-access=limited |page=[https://archive.org/details/homeshorthistory00rybc_006/page/n55 56] |location=London |publisher=Penguin |year=1987 |isbn=0-14-010231-0}}</ref> Rooms were changed from public to private as single entryways forced notions of entering a room with a specific purpose.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>