Growing Up One Room at a Time:

A way of life for some African-American families in the South Carolina low country.
A unique form of private-home building rooted in the coastal areas of Sene-Gambia, growing houses are the low country's modern-day link to west Africa. A growing house takes shape over many years, as a room added onto the original house with the birth of a every new child. Examples built during the slave trade period still exist in modern day Ghana and along the west coast of Africa. The picture to the right is a modern-day growing house on the outskirts of Charleston. Some isolated African-American communities in the South Carolina low country developed a property law system known as heirs' property. These communities and their unique property-inheritance system still exist today.
 
Taken in the Carolina low country, this photo illustrates the expansion of a growing house. The earliest portion of the house stands at the front. The house then grows one room at a time, Sometimes back and sometimes sideways. This house exhibits both examples. The color green is commonly used in African-American folklore to ward off evil spirits. Used here, the color makes a public statement about that the house is a haven. For more on other aspects of the house see: the porch page.
 

Many African-American families owned one large tract of land. On it they built their main home, usually with a porch. As the family grew, so did the home; as the individual members left the home, they often built their own family houses on the same piece of family-owned land. In some cases the original room added to the house during the birth of the person getting married serves as the new family's first home. With this, a new growing houseis born.

At the death of the mother and father in the family, the land is passed on to the children, who live on the land and pass it one their own children. Legally, in order to sell the land, every member of the family must consent.
 

This example, taken in a community outside of Charleston, South Carolina, shows a two-level main house with the additions coming to the back but not visible form the road. Family members have not divided this piece of property. Often times a particular piece of heir's property remains in a family for generations because not everyone will consent to sell the land.

This growing house phenomenon exists in its own form only in the Carolina low country. However, the the dog-trot house represents similar ideas in terms of growing house principles of design, but no research suggests that heirs' property arose alongside it. Heir's property stands as a unique and innovative example of regional community home design. Maintained in a similar way from its starting point in west Africa through to their presently documented locations in the Beehive community near Charleston, and on the island of Saint Helena on coastal South Carolina.

 
Heir's property and growing houses illustrate the importance of family as community in African-American life, as well as the importance of maintaining and perpetuating traditional values--here is takes the form of vernacular architecture and spatial housing arrangements--which is a cornerstone of African and African-American culture. The evolution of the dog-trot house in Mississippi is evidence that similar ideas about community develpment exist within the south. Architectural continuity in terms of the African and African-American psyches has long been over-looked. A large reason why is because this examination only focuses on they appearance of the dwelling, not on the use of the space in and around it. Spatial relationships, grounded in socio-historical factors rooted in contential Africa serve as an accurate and refreshing lends through which to to view many types of dwellings found within southern culture. The growing house illustrates how the historical and social significance of a particular type of home relates to the pragmatic, efficent lifestyle of the people of west Africa. This lifestlye elevates the importance of the community, the family and the home, placing all three into the forefront of daily life.

 

Keep Learning about African and African-American Architecture:

Join in on the scholarly discussion concerning African architecture: click here

To learn more about traditional environmental forms of architecture in Africa: click here

Learn more about John Micheael Vlach, the foremost researcher on African-American notions of space: click here