Theme 8

Structural design for houses has changed over the generations. In the beginning houses were made from rock formations which we call caves. In these earlier days that is all that those people knew how to work with, natural structures. Later years, house structures improved to mud bricks. Massive structures were built from these bricks, and some of them still stand today.

Newer human structures for a house include steel and wood. We have adapted to steel structures to allow our houses to be many floors high. For the typical home in this generation wood is used. Wood is a plentiful resource and is sturdy.

When humans started to build houses I do not believe that they had thought of their structures turning into play items. When I was a little girl I got a cardboard doll house for Christmas. This house was not designed to hold up to all elements of weather, but I loved it. The doll house was big enough that I was able to sit inside of the house in the open space provided and close the doll house around me. Inside of this house I was able to play with my dolls and furniture for hours all by myself. I had many hours of fun in this house for the course of two or maybe three weeks. Then my doll house was destroyed. The structural design was not able to hold up to a scared Pit Bull-English Bull Dog on a mad run. Needless to say my Mom was very mad when that dog landed on my doll house with me inside. My Aunt was not allowed in the house for weeks because she started the vacuum, and scared her own dog. That dog was petrified of a vacuum.

If my doll house had been made of wood it may have stood a better chance of surviving the scared dog. The cardboard house crumbled like it had been in the rain for a week when the dog landed on it. Probably the best material to stand up to the dog would have been mud bricks, as long as I didn’t spill a drink on it.