Hello! I'm a CG artist working on a scene depicting a middle-ages English peasant cottage. I'm looking for references on the materials and design of lower-class homes, and I'm not having too much luck. Most of what comes up on google is superficial, and most of the in-depth things I can find are about the much more involved architecture of higher-class buildings. Anything you lovely people could point me towards would be greatly appreciated!
There were a variety of methods - turf and sod houses, stone houses - but wattle-and-daub was probably the most common construction method used in England. This is basically a framework of timber, interlaced with woven sticks, over which plaster is applied. The roof is thatch laid over a frame; the floor is left dirt, but covered over with rushes or straw. For most of the middle ages, chimneys were virtually unknown in Europe. From poor to rich, most dwellings featured open fire pits, the smoke from which drifted through a hole left in the thatched roof.
The design was generally a long, single-story house, divided into two unequal sections. The larger section was the dwelling for the family, and the smaller section housed valuable livestock.
The following photo may be of some use, but only for building materials. Keep in mind two-story houses weren't usual, glass was rare - windows would usually be small and shuttered - and chimneys emerged at some point after the Crusades. If you're doing pre-1300, I'd definitely go with the hole-in-the-roof.