Architectural ABC's - Part Three

Part Three:
Although architects may know these terms and even use them often, the history and source of these terms in relation to their modern usage was in fact an interesting journey for me while researching them.  Aside from their alphabetical first letter, there was neither rhyme nor reason as to their selection, other than the etymological ancestry.  Here are 'Q' through 'W'.  Any help on X, Y and Z would be appreciated.

Quoins – are the expressive corner pieces in masonry wall.  They are often ‘faked’ in contemporary architecture using coated foam shapes.  Originally they were a legitimate reinforcing technique to support corners of walls that were spanned between with thinner stones.  In the Renaissance, quoins became exaggerated in order to impress upon the onlooker a feeling of strength.  Its origin is the same as the English word ‘coin’, both coming from the Latin ‘cuneus’ for wedge, or wedge shaped stone.  I guess you can say one is the cornerstone of an edifice, the other is the cornerstone of a free democracy.

Quoins on both corners at this intersection in Rome.

Reglet – is a linear architectural trim piece.  The term is often used when it involves flashing, or shedding of water from one surface to another.  The word is derived from the Latin ‘regula’ meaning straight edge.

The reglet here is along the rake, transitioning between stucco and metal flashing.

Scaffold – is a raised platform often seen used in the present participle of “scaffolding”.  Prior to its common use as a work surface for people and building materials working on architectural endeavors, it was commonly used to refer to the raised platform for the execution of criminals.  Earlier origins may be in the Italian word catafalco, which was the wooden framework supporting the coffin or body of a person during a funeral.  Maybe that is why erecting scaffolding is so darn expensive, because in the past, it was literally your last stop.

Scaffolding used to lay up masonry in a stair tower.

Terrazzo – is a flooring material made from chips of marble and granite set in a binder that is polished to give it a very smooth finish.  Many schools and public buildings have these floors because they last nearly forever and are abuse resistant.  The word terrazzo literally means “terrace” and the latin root terra means “earth”.  Invented by Italians to be a low cost alternative to stone slab floors, it is now a very high end material in terms of cost.

Used in schools because of its bullet proof nature, this is the school I went to 30 years ago, exactly the same today.

Urn – this form is found in Federal and Georgian Revival styles of architecture in decorative treatments in wood façade features as well as other decorative carvings in buildings.  The urn was very popular in furniture making in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, and as the two fields shared woodworking crafters, it may have migrated.  Urns symbolize immortality and the word comes from the Latin ‘urna’ for earthen vessel for ashes or water.

The urn often makes its way into the pediment, as in this example from downtown Lancaster.

And another here.

Vinyl – what architectural materials cannot be made of this stuff?  Most commonly, building materials are made from PVC, or polyvinyl chloride.  But who knew that the word origin of vinyl comes from the Latin ‘vinum’ which means wine because of ethyl alcohol’s role in the chemistry of it.  The word as we know it originated with German Chemist Hermann Kolbe in 1851.

Vinyl can do a lot of things - here is is shown on the inside and outside of the building at the same time.  It can look pretty convincing and also meet fire ratings and smoke spread requirements. 

Wainscot – or ‘wainscoting’ is the paneling on an interior wall, typically on the lower portion and today for aesthetic purposes only.  The term in its current use has been around from the 1500’s, but the term may come from the Low German ‘wagenschot’ in the 1300’s – having to do with wagon and coach building from boards used for paneling.  I’ve come to realize that almost everyone has their own pronunciation for this word.

Some of the nicest I've ever seen in a skilled nursing facility, wainscot can really set off a room.

Resources:

Dictionary.com

myEtymology.com

Wikipedia.org

Next:  Part 4, X Y and Z

Architectural ABC's - Part Two

Part Two:
Although architects may know these terms and even use them often, the history and source of these terms in relation to their modern usage was in fact an interesting journey for me while researching them.  Aside from their alphabetical first letter, there was neither rhyme nor reason as to their selection, other than the etymological ancestry.  Here are 'I' through 'P'.

Incandescent – As in the light bulbs quickly receding into obscurity; incandescent comes from the Latin incadescere, to glow white.  Electrical current runs through a wire filament at a high temperature in order to produce visible light.  Over 20 inventors of incandescent lamps are recognized prior to Thomas Edison, however, he included his lamp in a viable system able to provide electric lighting to towns.  The term can also be used as an adjective to describe many architects.

Edison's patent for the light bulb.

Jalousie – A type of window or shade that is made from overlapping, angled slats of wood or even glass.  Pronounced Jal-oh-SEE.  The word literally means ‘jealousy’ in French.  Seems to be a reference to the ability to look outside without being seen, in order to guard your possessions.  It won't meet any energy conservation awards, however.

A Jalousie window we used to have in our house.  Jealous?  No.

Knob – as in door.  Probably from Low German ‘knobbe’ for a knot in wood or perhaps a knoll, or isolated, round hill.  I try to avoid grassy knolls myself.  And book depositories. Dead as a door knob takes on another meaning in architecture, because door levers are the standard for accessibility, and knobs are more rarely used in commercial buildings.  Kentuck Knob, a Frank Lloyd Wright home in Western PA, is an example of the round hill definition.

A nice door knob in Murano, Italy.

Kentuck Knob is built just to the side of the hill, rather than on the hill, in typical Wright fashion.

Lintel – a load bearing member across an opening in a wall, regularly seen in a door or window.  This word derives from the Latin ‘limen’, which means threshold.  This is very nearly the opposite of a lintel in architectural terms, one above a door and the other below – curious.

You can see concrete lintels over three openings in this CMU wall.  Often the structure is hidden.

Exposed lintels can be extremely decorative, such as this example from Duke Street in Lancaster. 

Mortar – the mixture of cement and lime that binds bricks and other masonry units together.  This seems to derive from the Latin ‘mortarium’ or a bowl for mixing or pounding.  Interesting that the product was named after the vessel in which it is mixed.  And that thing on your head at graduation? A mortar board.

Bags of Type S Mortar on site.  The mixing vessel can be a wheelbarrow or a specialized mixer, seen in the background.

Nogging - This is not binge drinking too much of the yule-tide beverage.  This is the infill of brick or sometimes other building materials in half-timber construction.  Sometimes it was intended that this be plastered over, other times it remains exposed.  A 'nog' in old English is a wooden block or similar that is of the same size as a brick, unassumingly used as infill.  Also, in naval architecture, nogging is the act of maintaining the shape of the hull of the ship while it is being built, similar to shoring.

Brick nogging in half-timber framework.

Oculus - this means 'eye' in Latin.  It is an architectural opening most commonly thought of at the top of a dome, but can also be in a wall.  The Romans, unsurprisingly, used this feature often, and it was used heavily in Renaissance churches.  The plural is oculi.

One of the more famous oculi - in the roof of the Pantheon.

Portland Cement - is not named for either of the Portlands in the United States, but is actually named for a type of stone, Portland, quarried in England.  Modern cement was developed at the end of the 1700's and is a critical ingredient in concrete, but of course the Romans had it figured out in the B.C.'s or else the Pantheon would not still be here.  Portland cement reacts with water to harden, it does not 'dry out'.  It is a chemical reaction that will take far longer than the 7 or 28 day strength tests often used in construction.  Most Portland Cement was imported from England to the US until companies in Michigan and Pennsylvania began producing it in the late 1800's.

Mercer Castle, or Fonthill, was built in the early 1900's for the tile maker in Doylestown, Pa.  

Walls, roofs. window frames & mullions, and stairs are all made of concrete, possible because of Portland Cement.

Coming soon:  "P through W"  Should be interesting.

Architectural ABC's - Part One

Do you know the origins of these terms?  Although architects may know these terms and even use them often, the history and source of these terms in relation to their modern usage was in fact an interesting journey for me while researching them.  Aside from their alphabetical first letter, there was neither rhyme nor reason as to their selection, other than the etymological ancestry.

ANSUL – A combination from the words Anhydrous Sulfur Dioxide (SO2).  This fire extinguishing chemical is synonymous with any commercial kitchen installation to architects.  The chemical compound was also used as a fruit preservative and refrigerant in earlier years.  The Ansul Company was named as a defendant in a 2005 lawsuit regarding the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam.  Don’t spill any of that on the grill.

A typical ANSUL suppression system over a commercial kitchen grill.

Bariatric – From the Greek roots:  bar- (meaning weight); -iatr (meaning treatment); and –ic (pertaining to).  The term originated in 1965 and has in recent years become prevalent in health care architecture regarding patient rooms and spaces for the treatment of obese patients.  Specialized lifts and furniture along with larger spaces for patients are included in “Bariatric Rooms”.  Many facilities provide at least one or two bariatric rooms in each new wing to be built.

Ceiling lifts and the removal of barriers are typically addressed in rooms to serve Bariatric patients.

Caisson – From the French word for ‘box’ or ‘case’, in architectural terminology, a caisson is a deep, drilled footing or foundation system as opposed to a spread footing.  They are used where there is poor soil or high risk of turning due to seismic activity or in very tall buildings.  Maybe it comes from the need to find a big box of money to pay for them.

Cross-section of deep foundations.

Decibel (dB) – Strictly speaking, a decibel is a logarithmic unit used to compare two values of power or intensity.  In architecture this is most commonly sound intensity.  Deci- denotes a factor of one tenth and –bel is used in honor of Alexander Graham Bell, as the term originated to signal loss across telegraph and telephone circuits.

Various sound sources and their intensities.

EPDM rubber – Ethylene propylene diene monomer.  An elastomeric, synthetic rubber perfect for roofing.  Also a good insulator and chemically and thermally stable, it is also used in sealants and gaskets in the automotive and aviation industries.

A sheet of EPDM roofing.

Flue – The opening in a chimney to direct exhaust from a fireplace of some other combustion source.  This term likely comes from Middle English ‘flewe’ meaning a mouthpiece for a hunting horn, or Olde English ‘flowan’ or to flow.  Or both, no one seems to know for sure.

A cross-section of a chimney and flue.

Galvanic action (or corrosion) – This is a chemical process named after 18^th Century Italian physician Luigi Galvani.  Galvanic action occurs when one metal corrodes another metal in the presence of an electrolyte.  Salt water or acid rain provides the electrolyte in most architectural corrosive environments.  Architects must be careful in the placement of dissimilar metals if exposed to the exteriors of buildings.  Galvani discovered the process by making dead frog’s legs twitch.

The bolts are a dissimilar and non-compatible material to the metal it is fastening, thus the corrosion.

HEPA filter – High Efficiency Particulate Arresting filters are those that remove 99.97% of particles measuring 0.3 microns from the air passing though.  The original HEPA filter was developed for the Manhattan Project in order to prevent radioactive particles.  Probably didn’t help much when the bombs were detonated in the open air.  It is now a generic term but was a registered trademarked in the 1950’s.

An example of a HEPA filter.  Normally many times thicker than a traditional filter.

Next up:  "I through P"

Birthday Reminders

Need a reminder to get a birthday gift for that special architect in your life?  Feel free to import into your Outlook calendar.  Included on the right of their names are some of the seminal works, along with some of the photos I have collected along my travels.

January

Victor Horta                       1.6.1861             Belgian Art Nouveau designer of Hotel Tassel

Julia Morgan                      1.20.1872           American designer of Hearst Castle and estate

February

Alvar Aalto                         2.3.1898             Finnish International Style designer of Finlandia Hall

Paul Williams                     2.18.1894           African-American designer of the Theme Building at LAX

Loius Kahn                         2.20.1901           American designer of Salk Institute

Kahn - First Unitarian Church of Rochester

March

Mies Van Der Rohe           3.27.1886           German-American designer of The Barcelona Pavilion

Van Der Rohe - Barcelona Pavilion

April

Peter Behrens                     4.14.1868           German designer of The AEG Turbine Factory

Julian Francis Abele          4.30.1881           African-American designer of Duke University (then white only)

Behrens - AEG

May

Benjamin Latrobe              5.1.1764             British-American designer of the US Capitol

Gordon Bunshaft               5.9.1909             American modernist designer of Lever House (and best name ever)

Walter Gropius                  5.18.1883           German (and later American resident) leader of the Bauhaus

June

Charles R. Macintosh        6.7.1868             Scottish designer of the Glasgow School of Art

Frank Lloyd Wright          6.8.1867             American designer of Fallingwater and Guggenheim

Antonio Gaudi                  6.25.1852           Catalan designer of the Church of the Sagrada Familia

Gaudi - Segrada Familia

July

Philip Johnson                  7.8.1906             American designer of the Glass House

Inigo Jones                       7.15.1573           English neo-classicist designer of the Queen’s House

August

Charles Bullfinch             8.8.1763             American designer of University Hall, Harvard

Robert Mills                     8.12.1781           American designer of the Washington Monument

Eero Saarinen                   8.20.1910           Finnish-American designer of Dulles Airport Terminal

Mills - Washington Monument

September

Sir John Soan                   9.10.1753           English neo-classicist designer of Bank of England

H.H. Richardson              9.29.1938           American designer of Trinity Church, Boston

October

Le Corbusier                    10.6.1887           Swiss-French designer of Villa Savoye

Christopher Wren            10.20.1632         English designer of St. Paul’s Cathedral

Le Corbusier - Unite d'Habitation, Berlin

November

Andrea Palladio               11.30.1508         Italian Renaissance designer of Villa Rotunda

Palladio - Villa Rotunda

December

Gustave Eiffel (Hon.)      12.15.1832         French Engineer making the list for his Tower

Josef Hoffman                 12.15.1870         Austrian designer of Wiener Werkstatte

Oscar Niemeyer               12.15.1907         Brazilian designer of Cathedral of Brasilia

Eiffel - 1889 World's Fair Tower

What struck me in putting this list together, and there are many more who could have been added, was the prolific amount of important architects born between roughly 1860 and 1890.  These men and women shaped much of the 20^th Century.  Also, December 15 seems to be a harbinger for greatness.  Seems to me there was one more…

Sustainability in My Neck of the Woods

Having grown up in Lancaster County, green and sustainable principals have always been a part of our consciousness.  It does not escape my predilection for irony that these fundamental ideas are historically more prominent in the rural areas than in more developed parts of the City.

One can drive a car or ride a bike down the lanes that divide one farm from another and see the originators of sustainability and conservation.  I have been aware of harnessing the wind to create power my entire life, for instance.  It is not a new technology by any means, nor has the technology been improved significantly in the last 40 years aside from enhancements to battery storage.  The rotational moment is still the means to produce electricity.  Amish and Mennonite farms in the area have powered their electric fences with wind mills or water mills for centuries.  Now we see wind farms out our windows on the PA Turnpike.  I always wonder why some of the giant turbines are never rotating – you never see that happen on a farm.

High Tech wind power on the landscape.

Composting has also made it to the mainstream in urban and suburban centers.  From the zero-waste hotel I stayed in during a visit to Boulder, CO (good luck finding a non-recyclable or compostable trash - trash can), to the little compost mixer in my neighbors back yard, more is being done with our waste to keep it out of landfills.  As a 16 year old working on a produce farm just a few miles from here, however, I was all too aware of compost.  I dreaded the times when I would have to accompany my boss, Farmer Jim, out to the "pit" - a foul smelling and fly infested hole in the ground that I would have to "feed" with the rotting remains of cantaloupes, pumpkins or peaches.

Farmers allow unsold produce to compost in fallow fields.  This is the field I worked as a kid.

And it is funny more me to think that a trademark feature of a modern home is a laundry room on the second floor.  On those bike rides through the farmland, almost all the homes I saw had a very specialized technology to that not only delivered the laundry to the second floor of the homeowner's house, but also harnessed solar and wind power to complete the drying process at the same time.  It's called a clothesline on a pulley.

Solar and Wind dry these bloomers.

Because of our unique heritage here, Lancastrians have been exposed to sustainable ideas since the first settlers utilized them out of necessity.  The expansion and reliance upon the mechanical revolution may have clouded this vision to modern inhabitants, but because of the traditions and perhaps the frugality of our neighbors (all ancestors of the first settlers in the 1700's), we can take some pride in their continued vigilance and excellent stewardship of our natural resources.

What the Architect Heard...

What do you mean we need an expansion joint?

Is that mail box USPS approved?

How do we make people feel safe to sleep at our hotel?

I like corn on the cob.

I need some way for people to know this is my house.

We probably don't want to call attention to the renovation.

I don't like it when a house has a good side and a bad side.

Yes, but what can you do INSIDE the box?

Put the ADA ramp on the back side.

Skylights always leak...

Make sure the addition is seamless.

The Engineer said we need some small louvers on the front of the building. He gave the free area in centimeters...

The Owner wants a flexible dimming system.

If Architect is a Verb, I Are One, Too.

Kanye West’s observations aside, I have never used the word architect as a verb.  I am one. 

Call me a fuddy duddy, but I speak English the way I learned it in high school. Not perfectly, mind you, but there are things I just cannot bring myself to say out loud.   I acknowledge that language does change over time, but sometimes it changes for the wrong reasons.  The simple fact that certain people recognize the word “literally” to mean the exact opposite of the word's true definition, and means “figuratively” drives me nuts.  We adjust a definition because it is used incorrectly by some inane segment of the population?  It just makes me think of about a bunch of hipsters complaining to each other about going to a club to which they really want to go, but have to pretend to their fiends that they are only really going to visit to be “ironic”.  That last word was placed in quotes to recognize that it was not used in a way approved by my late English teacher, Ms. Clouser.  When there is a word for what you mean, use it.

Another thing that I don’t understand is why we (as a culture) assign new words to things that already have a name.  Where did “signage” come from?  What about the word “sign” is insufficient to describe either the verb of signaling or the noun that perpetrates the act?  Also around the studio, you hear the suffix “-age” applied to other words that don’t need it.  “I am in the mood for some funnage?” or “I need to get my grubbage on!”  Does it add to your street cred?  (Ironic shortening of word acknowledged).  I’ve even heard it in design references when someone doesn’t have quite the right word, like “that elevation needs something; we need to add a little dormer-age or something.”

I have never architected.  I design.  I problem solve.  I coordinate systems.  I have even used the term practice.  I have used the term “doctor” as a verb, but never in the context of treating an illness.  And when one “lawyers” up, they are not acting as a lawyer, but are in need of one.  The science and art of architecture, for me, does not translate into fashion design or sneakers or even computer science.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t feel as though we need to speak in iambic pentameter.  To me this is like naming your child Apple.  There is already a definition for that word, and there are other suitable words available that won't be confused with produce or iPods. 

Believe me, I wish I had come up with the idea my fellow PSU alumni Chris Patt had in his popular and clever How to Architect YouTube series and book.  I wish I had the insight available in his book before I entered architecture school, but grammar lessons prevent me from using “architect” as a verb.  But then again, here I am writing for free instead of for royalties, so who's the smart one?

And for the record, I hang around with architects, mostly.  Just like Kanye.