Everything depended on local conditions (the requirements of the terrain and the character of land cleared for sowing or pasture), and the background of the settlers. In the case of villages on terrain that had been drained, most often one finds buildings constructed in a straight line, with farms located between the river and a road running parallel. Each settler received a thin strip of land located at a right angle to the river or other body of water. If the chief task of the colonists was clearing forest lands, the land owner would designate a specified area, and the settler would choose himself the best place to make a clearing and would situate his farmstead there. This led to the appearance of so-called "zabudowa kolonijna", and in effect the village had a dispersed character. In the earliest period of settlement, on the fertile soil of Prussia, large and wealthy farms prevailed. In a later period, especially in the valley of the Vistula River, there appeared ever more frequently small, poor and more dispersed farms. As regards the type of buildings, that depended strongly on the ethnicity of the colonists. Szałygin distinguished three types:   Górak points out the pros and cons of the Frisian and German types of farm. On the one hand, such placement of the buildings facilitated work and communication, especially in the rainy season or winter, when it was possible to maintain the farm without going outdoors (except to draw water). On the other hand, there is no way to ignore the terrible sanitary conditions and discomfort (especially the stench) resulting from having livestock living so close by. If the settlers came from the Netherlands, and their task was flood control and draining flooded terrain, they applied certain typical methods of protecting their farms against high water. Buildings were located on an elevated platform, raised using dirt from excavating canals and drainage ponds. In the vicinity, they planted poplars and willows, whose purpose was to stop ice floes in the river during melts. The residential portion of the building was always close to the river, or pointed upstream, so that in case of flood the water would flow first through the residential portion, then through the rest of the farm buildings, and finally spill out onto the fields, which helped to keep the building clean. In discussing characteristic buildings of the Olęder settlement, one must also mention houses with open passageways on the groundfloor, and windmills (often based on Dutch designs) – the distinguishing contribution of the Dutch and Frisian immigrants to the Polish rural landscape (especially in Żuławy).