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house

vr.tr.house · thing-q3947

Let an agent tell a house from the household living in it and from the plot it stands on, judge its condition and its permissions, and decide what may be done to it and by whom.

Thing Registry Physical world and living systems PHY.OBJ
Bundle → Layer → Finding → QuestionsClassifiersWhat it isWhy it existsDistinguishing featuresWhat robots and AI may and may not doMoral aspectsOwnersLinks to other meta-modelsIdentity and identifiersDirect propertiesRecognitionCapabilities and actionsHazards and failure modesStandards and interfacesContext of useSources

Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Filled

5 bundles · 10 layers · 10 findings · 20 questions

Identity, plot and property rights Which house this is, what land it stands on, and who holds what over it.

Which house this is

Address, register entries and what each of them actually names.

Identifiers and what each identifies

An address names a delivery point, a title names a property, and neither names the structure.

  1. What address and register entries name this house, and does each refer to the building, the plot or the property? definition
  2. What evidence resolves the case where the address has been reassigned or the plot subdivided? provenance

Rights and interests

Ownership, tenancy, charges and rights others hold over it.

Who may decide what

Owner, occupier, lender and neighbour each hold different powers over the same house.

  1. Who owns, who occupies, and who else holds a registered interest or right of way over this house? definition
  2. Whose consent does a given alteration require, and what must an agent refuse to arrange without it? action
Fabric, construction and period What it is made of and what that implies about everything else.

Structure and materials

Walls, roof, floors and foundations as built and as altered.

As built and as altered

The original construction and every change made since, which is usually undocumented.

  1. What construction and materials is this house built from, and which parts have been altered since? definition
  2. What evidence exists for alterations, and what should an agent assume where there is none? provenance

Hazardous materials

What the period of construction implies is present.

Period hazards and their constraint

Materials that are safe in place and dangerous when disturbed.

  1. Which hazardous materials are likely given this period of construction, and where would they be? boundary
  2. What must be established before any work disturbs them, and by whom? action
Habitability, services and performance Whether it can be lived in, and how well.

Connections and supply

Water, drainage, power, heat and communications, each with its own supplier and failure mode.

What it is connected to

Which services reach it, on what terms, and what happens when one stops.

  1. Which services is this house connected to, metered how, and who supplies each? definition
  2. Which single failure makes it uninhabitable, and what is the response? action

Thermal and energy performance

How well it holds heat and what that costs.

Performance, measured and modelled

The certificate figure, how it was produced, and what it fails to capture.

  1. What energy performance is recorded for this house, assessed by whom and when? measurement
  2. Where does the assessment method diverge from how the house actually behaves? boundary
Condition, defects and maintenance What state it is in and what is falling due.

Defects and their urgency

What is wrong, how bad, and how fast it worsens.

Defects and their trajectory

Findings with a date, a severity and a rate of change.

  1. What defects are recorded for this house, found by whom, and how quickly does each worsen? measurement
  2. Which defect obliges immediate action rather than scheduling, and on whose judgement? action

Maintenance cycle

The recurring work that keeps a house from failing.

Recurring work and responsibility

What must be done, how often, and who is obliged to do it.

  1. What maintenance does this house require, at what interval? definition
  2. Who bears each obligation under the current tenure, and what happens when it is not met? action
Permissions, alteration and lifecycle What may be changed, by whom, and how the house ends.

What needs permission

Planning, building control, conservation and tenancy constraints.

Permission required, by change

Which alterations need which consent, and which need none.

  1. Which consents does a given alteration to this house require, and from which authority? definition
  2. What must an agent verify before arranging work that may need consent? action

Change of use, extension and end

Conversion, subdivision, demolition, and what each does to the identity of the thing.

Identity through change

When a change makes it a different house, and when it does not.

  1. Which changes preserve the identity of this house in the registers, and which create a new object? boundary
  2. What must be recorded so that a later reader can follow the house through those changes? provenance

Classifiers Filled

Family
Thing Registry
Category
Physical world and living systems
Entry kind
thing
Plane
PHY
Domain
PHY.OBJ
Other names and narrower kinds
earth shelter, mud building, palace, post in ground, atrium house, entry barracks, convalescence block, detached house, pit-house, casa del fascio, thatched farmhouse, thatched cottage

What it is Filled

A building usually intended for people to live in, which may accommodate one or more households and may have independent, shared or no utility connections.

Why it exists Filled

Let an agent tell a house from the household living in it and from the plot it stands on, judge its condition and its permissions, and decide what may be done to it and by whom.

Distinguishing features Filled

  • A house is a dwelling building that may accommodate one or more households, while a flat is a dwelling within a larger building.
  • A house is a building distinct from the household that lives there and from the plot it stands on.
  • A house is permanent and sited, which separates it from a caravan or a houseboat used as a home.
  • Residential permission affects the legal status of its use but does not define whether the building is a house.

What robots and AI may and may not do Filled

Must not

  • Enter a house without the occupants' permission or a lawful warrant.
  • Record or share images of the inside of a home without consent.
  • Disable safety systems such as smoke alarms or gas shut-offs.
  • Present a house as available for sale or rent without the owner's authority.

Only with a human decision

  • Changing locks, access codes or alarm settings.
  • Calling emergency services on the household's behalf when the situation is unclear.

May

  • Describe a house from public records and visible features.
  • Monitor and report its systems (heating, water, power) for the household that authorized it.
  • Schedule maintenance requested by the occupants.

Moral aspects Filled

  • A home is where privacy is strongest; observing it is intrusive even when legal.
  • Housing decisions affect families' security and can discriminate.

Who is affected

  • Occupants and household members
  • Neighbours
  • Owners and tenants

Owners Filled

Steward

The owner of the property; the occupants hold possession. The land registry records title.

Master systems

  • Land registry or cadastre

Links to other meta-models Filled

parent

  • Q11755880 - registry parent class
  • Q41176 - registry parent class
  • Q811979 - registry parent class
  • Q989946 - registry parent class

related

  • building - everything true of buildings applies: structure, permits, inspection, demolition
  • household - the people are not the building; they move, it does not
  • land parcel - the plot is a separate object with its own boundaries and its own register
  • water supply and drainage - a dwelling without them is uninhabitable regardless of its condition
  • building code and planning regime - these decide what may be built, altered and occupied

contains

  • room - rooms are where occupancy, heating and most alterations are actually reasoned about

What else AI and robots need to interact with it Filled

Identity and identifiers required Filled

  • Vercy registry: vr.tr.house
  • Wikidata: Q3947 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3947)
  • address: jurisdiction-specific human-facing and reassignable; not a stable identifier
  • cadastral or title number: national register identifies the property in law, which is the plot plus what stands on it
  • building reference in an address register: national the closest thing to a stable identifier for the structure itself

Direct properties required Filled

  • floor area: 50-250 m2 - varies more by region than by anything about the building
  • storeys: 1-3 count - excluding cellars and roof spaces, which are counted differently by different registers
  • occupancy: 1-6 people - designed occupancy and actual occupancy routinely differ
  • service life: 60-150 years - structure outlasts every system inside it

Recognition required Filled

  • Its own front door to the outside, which is what separates a house from a flat inside a larger building
  • Roof form and wall material, which indicate period and construction and so what may be behind the surface
  • A street address or plot number, which identifies this house rather than the kind - and addresses are reassigned more often than people expect
  • Meter positions and service connections, which say what it is actually supplied with rather than what it appears to have
  • A roofed structure of one to three storeys with walls, windows and at least one door to the outside, standing alone or joined to neighbours, usually within a boundary that marks its plot.

Capabilities and actions required Filled

  • live in it, which is the point and the thing most rules protect
  • enter and leave it, and stop others doing so
  • heat, cool, light and supply it, all of which need connections it does not own
  • alter, extend and repair it, mostly with permission
  • buy, sell, let and mortgage it, none of which touch the building
  • insure it against the events that damage buildings

Hazards and failure modes required Filled

  • Water: roof, plumbing and rising damp, which cause most of the slow damage buildings suffer
  • Structural movement and subsidence, which is what surveys look for and what insurers price
  • Fire, with escape routes and detection the things that decide outcomes
  • Hazardous materials from the period of construction - asbestos, lead paint, lead pipe - which constrain any alteration
  • Services failing: heating in winter and drainage at any time make a sound house uninhabitable

Standards and interfaces required Filled

  • National building codes, which set structure, fire, insulation and accessibility requirements at the time of construction or alteration
  • Planning or zoning regimes, which decide whether a dwelling may exist there at all
  • Energy performance certification schemes, which produce the rating attached to sales and lettings
  • Housing fitness and habitability standards, which govern what a landlord must maintain

Context of use required Filled

  • Sheltering a household: keeping weather out, holding warmth, and giving a place to sleep, cook, wash and keep belongings.
  • by attachment: detached, semi-detached, terraced
  • by construction: masonry, timber frame, panel, prefabricated
  • by tenure: owner-occupied, rented, social, shared ownership
  • by period, which in practice predicts construction, insulation and hazards better than any other single fact

Sources Filled

  1. Wikidata item Q3947: house - identity and sense of the item
  2. Wikipedia: House - general description of the item

Open questions

  • Should the model treat a house as a building with a dwelling use, or as a dwelling that happens to be a building - the two give different answers for conversions and subdivisions?
  • How should shared structures be handled, where a terrace is one structure and several houses?
  • What is the minimum evidence for occupancy, given that registers, utilities and reality routinely disagree?
  • How should period-implied hazards be represented so they are treated as likelihoods rather than as recorded facts?

Machine files

Card as JSON Specification Card backlog vercy.card/1

Provenance

thing registry research (pass 2) · unreviewed

Built from: models/things/publications/thing-q3947/spec.json