ar-ki-tect speak

I realize some of the words I use in this blog are confusing to some of my followers who are not architects or designers.  So I have listed some of the words that appear in my blog here.  This attempts to be both informative and entertaining.

If you have words or terms you want to have added, email me!

(A)

• Adjacency / Adjacencies : what rooms or spaces need to be close together, what needs to be far apart, etc.  Knowing this helps us figure out how to place everything in the building.  There are common sense ones, like you need a bathroom near your restaurant, and others that come specific to the owner's wishes, such as the owner wants a gym next to the administration office, but not near the building entrance.  (PS: Spelling correction software does not know what architects know, that the word "adjacency" can, and should, be plural!) 
• Aquaponics  : a type of food growth that feeds vegetation from the waste of fish that are grown alongside them.  It is nearly a "closed-loop" production process, in which the system needs very little added "nutrition" to keep producing food. 
• Architecturalize  : to turn something such as an idea or concept into a building or a part of a building, usually meaning it becomes something you can see and touch.

(B)

• Building geometry  : the overall shape of the building, how it will look.  This usually is determined by the climate/environment and maximizing potential for good shade and sun exposure, views, and blocking against bad weather. 
• Business Incubation  : helping business flourish, providing resources in terms of education, equipment, or property to help jump-start entrepreneurs that would otherwise not have access to these resources.  Typically, this is focused on providing rentable amenities that are required by law in order to operate the business, but which are usually not attainable by people starting a business because of the high cost, such as a licensed kitchen in which to cook food for sale.

(C) 

• Case study  : another project that has something in common with yours that you can study to see how similar issues and problems were solved by someone else.  (aka 1 part information, 1 part inspiration) 
• Circulation  : (1) something architects use to lose after hours of hand drafting!  (2) how people and supplies move through your building; includes horizontal movement (hallways, corridors, lobbies, etc.) and vertical movement (stairs, elevators, escalators, etc.)

(E) 

• Easement  : by (zoning) law, the space on the property we cannot build a building on; usually located on the outside area of the property, typically the back.  Usually required to allow alley access to your or nearby buildings, or to prevent my back window from being two feet away from your bathroom window.  
• Elevation  : a drawing of the building as if you are facing one of the sides of the building "head  on"

(F) 

• Figure-ground  : a drawing or diagram usually from above showing what part of the land is covered with a building (aka the "figure) and what is covered with green space (aka the "ground"); sometimes this also shows what part is covered with roads, sidewalks etc.  It is a simple drawing showing just the outlines of the buildings, which are usually colored in.  A figure-ground is a quick way to show building density in an area. 
• Frontage  : this is a term I use to refer to the part of the building or site/property that lines a specific street, so the 43rd St. frontage is the part of the building or site/property that is "on" 43rd St.

(G) 

• Geo-exchange  : commonly referred to as "geothermal"; this uses tubes in the earth connecting to your building's air or water cooling/heating system that uses the constant temperature in the ground (below the frost line) to temper the air, thereby requiring less energy to do so.  In summer, hot air from the building is cooled underground since the ground is cooler; in winter, cold air is warmed underground since the ground is warmer. 
• Grid  : a group of lines architects use to figure out a logical order to where the walls, columns, or other structural parts of the building go.

(I) 

• Iteration / iterative process : "if at first you don't won't succeed, try try again!"

(N) 

• Natural ventilation  :opening up the building to natural breezes in order to make people inside feel comfortable

(O) 

• Orientation  : the direction a building or site is facing (usually listed as facing N, E, S, or W or in terms of something surrounding like a view, etc.)

(P) 

• Passive strategies  : an attempt to reduce energy needs by using naturally-occurring processes to do some of the work for you, such as using the sun instead of a light bulb to light a room, using a breeze to cool a space rather than AC, etc. 
• Plan  : (1) something architects forget to do!  (2) a drawing of the building from above, usually one for each floor of the building.   
• Program :simply, the list of rooms or spaces to be in or around a building, though architects like to think of this as more 
• Programing  : creating the program for the building, aka, deciding what rooms or spaces or functions need to go into the project.

(R) 

• Rainwater catchment  : collecting rainwater usually from the roof to use for things that do not require water clean enough to be consumed by humans.

(S)  

• Setback  : similar to the easement; a setback is a decision to not build up to the property line, but to "set the building back" from it.  Unlike easements, this is not always mandatory, and is usually a decision to sacrifice a bigger building for a better building. 
• Site  : usually means the property on which the project is being built, but sometimes architects refer to the site as also including the surrounding buildings, roads, and green space--in this way, architects think of a site as a "condition," similar to a biological or social "environment" that affect people. 
• Solar mass heating  : passive strategy in which during the day, sunlight heats something inside the building that has a large mass (such as a stone floor or a brick wall).  Since the heat is being stored inside the mass, the heat in the spaces is reduced during the day, however, at night when the temperature in the room is lower than that of the mass, then the heat leaves the mass and fills the space, heating it naturally. 
• Space planning  : after you know what rooms/spaces need to go into the project, space planning involves trying to figure out where they all go, and considers how each space should "feel" (ie: is it big enough, have a good view, relate well to the building next to it, etc.) 
• Sustainability  : never really trust an architect to define this, but you can trust me.  Sustainability usually refers to passive strategies, ways of reducing waste and preventing environmental destruction, and even ways to make the world/environment/life "better" now and in the future.  In the context of this project, sustainable development also means how do you make a project that can survive and thrive, and not just go out of business, deteriorate, or otherwise become something less than you imagined it to be.

(T) 

• Typologies  : usually "building typologies," refers to larger classifications of building types that can be used as reference, such as apartment types, strip-mall types, high rise types, etc.

(W) 

• Waste stream  : (1) the Chicago River.  (2) refers to the movement of materials into dumps, etc.

All content here is my own, and this does not represent any "official" definition of any of these terms.