A Visual Dictionary of Architecture- Comprehensive

From Top Lab

Art Architecture

The product or result of architectural work; building, collectively

Science Architecture

A style or method of building characteristic of a people, place, or time.

Designing Architecture

The profession of designing buildings and other habitable environments.

Constructing Architecture

The conscious act of forming things, resulting in a unifying or coherent structure.

Architecture

The art and science of designing and constructing buildings.

Art

The conscience use of skill, craft, and creative imagination in the production of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

Aesthetics

The branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of art, beauty, and taste, with a view to establishing the meaning and validity of critical judgements concerning works of art.

Beauty

The aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives intense pleasure to the senses or deep satisfaction to the mind or spirit, whether arising from harmony or form or color, excellence of craft, truthfulness, originality, or other, often unspecific property

Taste

Critical judgement, discernment, or appreciate of what is fitting, harmonious, or beautiful prevailing in a culture or personal to an individual.

Environmental design

The ordering of the physical environment by means of architecture, engineering, construction, landscape architecture, urban design, and city planning.

Urban Design

The aspect of architectural and city planning that deals with design of urban structures and spaces.

City planning

The activity or profession of determining the future physical arrangement and condition of a community, involving an appraisal of the current conditions, a forecast of future requirements, a plan for the fulfillment of these requirements, and proposals for legal, financial, and constructional programs to implement the plan.

Interior Design

The art, business, or profession of planning the design and supervising the execution of architectural interiors, including their color schemes, furnishings, fittings, finishes, and sometimes architectural features.

Space planning

The aspect of architecture and interior design that deals with the planning, layout, design, and furnishing of spaces within a proposed or existing building.

Technology

Applied science; the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical methods and materials, and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment.

Technics

The science of an art or of the arts in general.

Tectonics

The science or art of shaping, ornamenting, or assembling materials in building construction.

Architectonics

The unifying structure or concept of an artistic work.

Engineering

The art and science of applying scientific principles to practical ends in the design and construction of structures, machines, and systems.

Science

A branch of knowledge dealing with a body of facts or truths obtained by direct observation, experimental investigation, and methodical study, systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws.

Firmness

The state or equality of being solidly constructed.

Engineering

The art and science of applying scientific principles to practical ends in the design and construction of structures, machines, and systems.

Behavioral science

Any of the sciences, such as sociology and anthropology, that seek to discover general truths from the observation of human behavior in society.

Sociology

The science of human social institutions and relationships, specif. The study of the origin, development, structure, functioning, and collective behavior of organized groups of human beings.

Anthropology

The science of human beings, specif. The study of the origins, physical and cultural development, and environmental and social relations of humankind.

Landscape architecture

The art, business, or protection of designing, arranging, or modifying the features of a landscape for aesthetic or practical reasons.

Regionalism

An approach to architecture that strives to counter a lack of identity or sense of place by utilizing the geographical context of a building to guide its design response to topography, climate, light, and tectonic form.

Arch

A curved structure for spanning an opening, designed to support a vertical load primarily by axial compression.

Masonry arch

An arch constructed of individual stone or brick voussoirs.

Voussoir

Any of wedge-shaped units in a masonry arch or vault, having side cuts converging at one of the arch centers.

Springer

The first voussoir resting on the impost of an arch.

Keystone

The wedge-shaped, often embelished voussoir at the crown of an arch, serving to lock the other voussoirs in place.

Extrados

The exterior curve, surface, or boundary of the visible face of an arch.

Archivolt

A decorative molding or band on the face of an arch following the curve of the intrados.

Intrados

The inner curve or surface of an arch forming the concave underside.

Rise

The height of an arch from the spring line to the highest point of the intrados.

Crown

The highest part or point of a convex construction, such as an arch, vault, or roadway.

Haunch

Either side of an arch curving down from the crown to the impost.

Impost

The uppermost part of an abutment, often in the form of a block, capital, or molding, from which an arch springs.

Spring

The point at which an arch, vault, or dome rises from its support.

Spandrel

The triangular-shaped, sometimes ornamented area between the extrados of two adjoining arches, or between the left or right extrados of an arch and the rectangular framework surrounding it.

Order

Any of several concentric rings of masonry forming an arch, esp. When each projects beyond the one below.

Lag

A crosspiece connecting the ribs in a centering. Also called BOLSTER.

Skew arch

An archway having sides or jambs not at right angles with the face of its abutments.

Order

Any of several concentric rings of masonry forming an arch, esp. When each projects beyond the one below.

Centering

A temporary framework for supporting a masonry arch or vault during construction until the work can support itself.

Camber piece

A board used as centering for a flat arch, slightly crowned to allow for settling of the arch.

Arch action

The manner in which an arch transforms the vertical forces of a supported load into inclined components and transmits them to abutments on either side of the archway.

Arch axis

The median line of an arched structure.

Line of thrust

The set of resultants of thrust and weight each part of an arch imposes on the next lower one. For bending to be eliminated throughout an arch, the line of thrust must coincide with the arch axis.

Funicular arch

An arch shaped to develop only axial compression under a given loading.

Inverted catenary

Is the funicular shape for an arch carrying a vertical load uniformly distributed along the length of the arch axis.

Parabola

The funicular shape for an arch carrying a vertical load uniformly distributed over its horizontal projection.

Thrust

The outward force or pressure exerted by one part of a structure against another.

Drift

The thrust of an arched structure on its abutments. Proportional to the total load and span, and inversely propotional to the rise.

Rigid arch

An arched structure of timber, steel, or reinforced concrete, constructed as a rigid body capable of carrying bending stresses.

Fixed arch

A fixed frame structure having an arched form.

Two-hinged arch

A two-hinged frame structure having an arched form.

Three-hinged arch

A three-hinged frame structure having an arched form.

Abutment

The part of a structure receiving and supporting the thrust of an arch, vault, or strut.

Tie rod

An iron or steel rod serving as a structural tie esp. One keeping the lower ends of an arch frame from spreading.

Flat arch

An arch having a horizontal intrados with voussoirs radiating from a center below, often built with a slight camber to allow for settling.

French arch

A flat arch having voussoirs inclined to the same angles on each side of the center.

Round arch

An arch having a continuously curved intrados, esp. A semicircular one.

Roman arch

An arch having a semicircular intrados.

Triangular arch

A primitive form of arch consisting of two stones laid diagonally to support each other over an opening.

Corbel arch

A false arch constructed by corbeling courses from each side of an opening until they meet at a midpoint where a capstone is laid to complete the work. The stepped reveals may be smoothed, but no arch action is effected.

Rampant arch

An arch having one impost higher than the other.

Stilted arch

An arch resting on imposts treated as downward continuations of the archivolt.

Bell arch

A round arch resting on two large corbels with curved faces.

Horseshoe arch

An arch having an intrados that widens above the springing before narrowing to a rounded crown.

Trefoil arch

An arch having a cusped intrados with three round or pointed foils.

Segmental arch

An arch struck from one or more centers below the springing line.

Skewback

A stone or course of masonry having a sloping face against which the end of a segmental arch rests.

Basket-handle arch

A three-centered arch having a crown with a radius much greater than that of the outer pair of curves.

Pointed arch

An arch having a pointed crown.

Equilateral arch

A pointed arch having two centers and radii equal to the span.

Gothic arch

A pointed arch. Esp. One having two centers and equal radii.

Lancet arch

A pointed arch having two centers and radii greater than the span.

Drop arch

A pointed arch having two centers and radii less than the span.

Tudor arch

A four- centered arch having an inner pair of curves with a radius much greater than that of the outer pair.

Surbased arch

An arch having a rise of less than half the span.

Ogee arch

A pointed arch, each haunch of which is a double curve with the concave side uppermost.

Span

The extent of space between two supports of a structure.

Clear span

The distance between the inner faces of the supports of a span.

Effective span

The center-to-center distance between the supports of a span.

Bending moment

An external moment tending to cause part of a structure to rotate or bend, equal to the algebraic sum of the moments about the neutral axis of the section under consideration.

Resisting moment

An internal moment equal and opposite to a bending moment, generated by a force couple to maintain equilibrium of the section being considered.

Deflection

The perpendicular distance a spanning member deviates from a true course under tranverse loading. Increasing with a load and span, and decreasing with an increase in the moment of inertia of the section or the modulus of elasticity of the material.

Camber

A slight convex curvature intentionally built into a beam, girder, or truss to compensate for an anticipated deflection.

Transverse shear

A shear force at a cross section of a beam or other member subject to bending, equal to the algebraic sum of transverse forces on one side of section.

Horizontal shearing stress

The shearing stress developed to prevent slippage along horizontal planes of a beam under transverse loading, equal at any point to the vertical shearing stress at that point.

Neutral axis

An imaginary line passing through the centroid of the cross section of a beam or other member subject to bending, along which no bending stresses occur.

Bending stress

A combination of compressive and tensile stresses developed at a cross section of a structural member to resist a transverse force, having a maximum value at the surface furthest from the neutral axis.

Vertical shearing stress

The shearing stress developed along a cross section of a beam to resist transverse shear, having a maximum value at the neutral axis and decreasing nonlinearly toward the outer faces.

Flexure formula

A formula defining the relationship between bending moment, bending stress, and the cross-sectional properties of a beam.

Moment of inertia

The sum of the products of each element of an area and the square of its distance from a coplanar axis of rotation.

Section modulus

A geometric property of a cross section, defined as the moment of inertia of the section divided by the distance from the neutral axis to the most remote surface.

Lateral buckling

The buckling of a structural member induced by compressive stresses acting on a slender portion insufficiently rigid in the lateral direction.

Principal stresses

The tensile and compressive stresses resulting from the interaction of bending and shear stresses at a cross section of a beam.