Geestharden house

In spite of its description, the Geestharden house is not just found on geest, a rolling landscape that was formed as a result of ice age glacial deposition, but also in the Marsch, the flat marshlands on the North Sea coast of Germany.

Their development is still largely unresearched, the research carried out during the period of Nazi Germany being disputed to some extent because at that time there were attempts to link the various house types to ethnic groups and thereby to support territorial claims.

The Uthland-Frisian house with its structural adaptations for flood-prone regions is mainly found on the islands and Halligen of North Frisia.

This variation, however, was only used in areas that were protected by strong dykes and was not adopted by Uthland-Frisian houses which occurred in regions endangered by storm surges.

Ever since the serious North Sea flood of 1962, newly built Hallig houses have been given concrete posts with deep foundations in order to improve their safety still further.

Because building materials, especially wood, were scarce and expensive, it was formerly common everywhere, to take the houses apart and move them if the warft was no longer safe or was otherwise abandoned.

This design enables the house to be evacuated in the event of fire without burning thatch falling on the escaping occupants.

The Döns or Dörnsch (Danish: Dørns) was a heated living room, in which the daily life of the farmhouse revolved.

The sleeping quarters were known as alcoves (German: Alkoven, Danish: Alkover) and were normally very compact: one metre wide, 2.50 m high and 1.70 m long.

Because of the method of construction, the working area could be extended either into an L-shaped building or even a in the shape of a square with an inner courtyard, depending on the situation.

The stalls and storage rooms are accessed from a long passageway in the middle of the building, as in the Lower Saxon house.

These farmhouses are mainly found in very exposed locations and are therefore almost always built in an east–west orientation in order to present as small an area as possible to the prevailing west winds.