When I was a child I always had a wish, as a village girl, I wanted to have a feel of a self-contained house or apartment. Wow, finally my dream was a reality. In some time past I realised that buildings have evolved greatly over time. Self-contained are nice and reformed buildings, from the old and ancient ones we had those past few decades.

A self-contained apartment is one which has a hall, bedrooms, kitchen, toilet, bathrooms, garage and even guest rooms all built into one big room, with its division. Such buildings mostly have walls built around them in order for proper security. In building a self-contained house, one needs to really gather resources in order to put up such a structure.

A land must be bought according to the size of the building one wants. And a land cost varies from one community to the other depending on the acres an individual wants. Speaking to an owner of one nice self-contained owner at osu, he just burst into laughter and started to tell his story. “Guess what, I spent a lot putting up such a structure here in Osu, the land alone is worth a fortune but just to give a family a comfortable life, I needed to build this structure”. He really explained that buying of building materials gave him a hell of a time, as prices shot up.

Immediately, he explained vividly about the pays he gave out to workers and gardeners among others. But he said excitedly that it is actually nice living in such an apartment and very comfortable because, there’s no need to struggle with other people for a bathroom treat, everything is located inside, which helps one move freely.

It is safer to live in a comfortable and expensive building than to live in a less expensive one and feel so uncomfortable.

Sometimes change is very crucial in our daily lives, so is it important in our society and a very good example is with our buildings. Today our prime focus is on chamber and hall rooms. Due to modernisation, architects have learnt to come up with creative designs of houses including their paintings and interior and exterior decorations. In our days today, it is easy to find a lot of chamber and hall apartments almost everywhere.

 

Chamber and hall is a block structure with just two compartments: it actually evolved from the putting together of two single rooms, some with their porches and others without. They also have their toilets and bathrooms outside of the building. Most families of today prefer this type of house due to its comfort and how affordable it is. Is it really affordable as stated?

As much as it is preferred and goes with modernity, it comes with a whole lot of cost because of the materials needed to put up such a building. One is safe when it’s an individual affair, but when it’s for renting, one suffers in order to gain more later after renting them. Because of the state of the economy, people and family find it difficult to get fund to put such structure so they prefer renting some for a period of time until they have accumulated enough funds for theirs.

Actually, landlords and ladies are making a whole lot of profit from renting a chamber and hall. Speaking to one of them, he says “I take one hundred Ghana cedi a month “. In calculations, one can imagine how much he charges for a year or two. The locality also matters in this aspect.

  Despite the prices or costs of these chamber and halls, people will just have no choice than to hire it and move to a suitable place after they are good to move.

  

Literally, it was stated clearly in the early editions of buildings, as to how buildings started and how it has transformed over the years through our villages, towns and cities. Emphasis was created more on the ancient mud houses and how they came about, its expenses and its comfort during the very first edition of “architectural transition”. As times passes by, development becomes a major key in the lives of mankind and technological enhancement is also on the rise, so is our politics and the economy.

Far from mud houses, I move straight to “single rooms”. Due to the change in technology, the use of mud and clay for the building of houses is seen as old.  It then dropped to the use of sand, cement and stones. Here, the land for the building is bought or given out for free by families through inheritance or friends and the labour force is paid, as well as the materials.

 

A series of single rooms

Single room as it is popularly called is just one building with four sides but built with blocks. Some of these single rooms come with porch and some do not. Some architects also design them according to one’s money. But in our world today, such rooms are associated with the low class in our society. But people build these ones for rent to students and workers. But we still notice some people staying in a single room with their families which are quite inconvenient but due to situations beyond their control, they live like that.

 

A video of a rented single room house

In a brief interview, I organised with a land lady at Kasoa, she goes to say that, prices of things are on the rise, so due to that, the rent of single rooms are also increasing every day in and out. She stated that she takes forty Ghana Cedis a month, so how much will a year amount to? I then thought that every area or community and its price varies. One can imagine how much a single room in Osu, Cantonment, Spintex, East-legon, Dzorwulu and other high rated places will cost.

To conclude, pictures, videos and audios will be shown on the page to give out more information on the topic.

 

An audio recorded of an interview with a land lady