Ancient Rome had very unique buildings. Let's take a look at the architecture of houses and other buildings in ancient Rome.

What would my house look like?

There were different types of houses in ancient Rome. If you were a poor Roman, you would have lived in a crowded high-rise apartment building that was very dirty. Apartment buildings were always in the city. The poorest people in the building lived on the top floor- they always had to climb the most stairs!
Romans who had more money lived in houses, called villas. The walls of villas were made out of clay and limestone, and the corners were brick or stone. The roofs of villas were made of flat tiles, called tegulae, and ridged tiles, called imbrices.
The richest Romans had three villas: one in the city, one in the country, and one by the sea. These men also owned small houses, called villa rustica, where their slaves slept.

What does it look like inside of my villa?

The inside of a Roman villa was beautiful since Romans loved decorative floors and walls. The floors were mosaics, pictures made out of small stones. Walls were usually decorated with paintings called frescoes. The frescoes were usually paintings of Roman lands, portraits of family members, or gods and goddesses.

None of the houses had bathrooms because ancient Romans all used the city public bathhouse.

Were there other buildings in Rome?

Every town or city in ancient Rome had many buildings other than apartment buildings and houses. The busiest part of every town was called the forum, a large open space in the middle of the town. Romans went to the forum every day to meet other Romans and buy food and other items from the market. The other important buildings in Rome surrounded the forum. Temples took many years to build and were probably the most beautiful buildings in all of ancient Rome. The forum also contained a theater and basilica, a building for the offices and the town court. The most important Roman architecture structures were the aqueducts.