Casey's Deck Flashcards
A superstructure on a roof, dome, or tower, glazed along its sides, which admits light to the area below.
Lantern
Structures or plants which, because of their form and location, reduce wind velocities.
Windbreak
The land surrounding a flowing stream over which water spreads when a flood occurs.
Flood Plain
The soil layer beneath the topsoil
Subsoil
The study of the relationship between people and the urban environment in which they live.
Urban Ecology
Earth that is replaced around a foundation or retaining wall after the concrete forms have been removed.
Backfill
A stone guard to prevent damage to a wall; also a freestanding stone post to divert vehicular traffic.
Bollard
A part of a highway marked off to carry a single line of moving vehicles.
Lane
The general pattern of movement of the water on, under and above the earth.
Water Cycle
To summarize; to get to the essence of something.
Abstract
A portico used in Greek architecture, often as a covered meeting place or promenade.
Stoa
The restoration or substantial improvement of a building.
Rehabilitation
A hole drilled into the ground at the site of a proposed structure in order to obtain samples of the subsurface soil for examination and testing in a laboratory. Based on these tests, the soils engineer recommends the type of foundation and the allowable soil bearing pressure.
Test Boring
The surface flow of water from an area.
Run-off
The percentage of total rainfall which is not absorbed in the ground and, hence, runs off. It must be collected in a system of surface and subsurface drains.
Runoff Coefficient
As used by Lynch, a point of reference in a city that cannot be entered into or traversed.
Landmark
The boundary line of a lot.
Lot Line
A structural member placed over an opening and supporting construction above.
Lintel
A long-range, overall plan or concept for an area’s development.
Master Plan
The most important city of a country, state or region; or any large, busy city.
Metropolis
The 18th century social or economic movement, begun in England, that mechanized the productive processes by substituting machine power for hand power.
Industrial Revolution
The point at which two streets come together or cross.
Intersection
The wedge-shaped top member of an arch.
Keystone
the smallest identifiable parcel of land in a city.
Lot
An underground pipe or drain used to carry off rain water (storm sewer) or waste matter (sanitary sewer).
Sewer
A form of real estate tenancy in which the lessee has the right to use a piece of property under conditions described in the lease.
Leasehold
An ecological system, consisting of a community of living organisms and its physical environment.
Ecosystem
A high-speed, multiple-lane highway designed to move traffic smoothly and without interruption. Also called a freeway.
Expressway
A continuous and unobstructed means of egress to a public way generally with a minimum width of 44 inches.
Exit
The digging or removal of earth.
Excavation
A balanced arrangement of elements on either side of a dividing line or plane.
Symmetry
A method of research consisting of the identification of a problem, the collection of relevant data, the formulation of a hypothesis, and the testing of that hypothesis.
Scientific Method
The process of determining location, form, and boundaries of a parcel of land by measurement, computation, and drawing.
Survey
the relationship of the sizes of building elements.
Proportion
The configuration of the surface features of an area of ground.
Topography
The heat transfer process which occurs when a warm fluid rises, displacing cold fluid which then falls.
Convection
The total horizontal area within the boundary lines of a parcel of land.
Lot Area
A street which carries relatively low traffic and provides access to low-intensity uses which front on it.
Local Access Street
A fictitious temperature which would produce the same physiological effect as the combined effects of temperatures, humidity and air movement.
Effective Temperature
the slight convexity of a column, used to overcome the optical illusion of concavity that would occur if the column were straight.
Entasis
The state of being a harmonious combination of elements.
Unity
The intersection of two roads at different levels so that vehicles may move from one road to the other without crossing the stream of traffic. Also called interchange.
Grade Separation
Composed of design elements originally derived from diverse sources or styles.
Hybrid
Designing the external physical environment in which buildings and structures are placed.
Site Planning
In far eastern architecture, a tower-like structure, often used as a shrine.
Pagoda
A continuous, major street, typically two or three lanes in each direction, that connects with the expressways at strategic locations.
Arterial Street
A use not strictly allowed in zoning ordinance, but permitted if specified conditions are met and if approval is granted by the local governing body.
Conditional Use
A graded flow path used in open drainage systems.
Swale
An arrangement which tends to keep people apart, such as back-to-back seating in an airline terminal waiting room.
Sociofugal
A set of rules for solving a problem in a finite number of steps.
Algorithm
A platform raised above floor level.
Dais
The eastern or alter end of a church, usually semi-circular in plan.
Apse
An inner court open to the sky, but surrounded by a roof.
Atrium
The French term for the columns that raise a building off the ground, as used by Le Corbusier.
Piloti
A community of people living in a general area, which can generally support an elementary school.
Neighborhood
A commemorative shaft, square in section, with a small pyramid on top.
Obelisk
The number of people or families per unit of area.
Population Density
Lynch’s term for a city’s circulation routes.
Paths
Separating into component parts; reducing to a simpler form.
Resolution
A curved structure composed of wedge-shaped elements, used to span an opening.
Arch
Ascribing human form or attributes to a being or thing not human.
Anthropomorphic
A buttressing or supporting structure.
Abutment
An arena encircled by tiers of seats.
Amphitheater
A statement supporting or helping to support a conclusion.
Premise
An original model after which something is patterned; a prototype.
Archetype
A bell tower
Campanile
A circular space covered by a dome.
Rotunda
The rate of slope between two points on a surface, determined by dividing their vertical difference in elevation by their horizontal distance apart.
Gradient
In urban planning, an outlying community of secondary importance, dependent on a larger city.
Satellite
Paving using crushed stone.
Macadam
The difference of elevation between adjacent contour lines.
Contour Interval
A typical pattern of urban development formed by a grid street system with two or more corridors of intense development intersecting at a central core.
Rectilinear Pattern
The entrance vestibule of a church.
Narthex
The process by which water vapor escapes into the atmosphere from plants.
Transpiration
The hierarchical order in a society by which some individuals or groups control others.
Dominance
Appropriation of private property for public use, together with acceptance for such use by a public agency.
Dedication
An independent living area which includes its own private cooking and bathing facilities.
Dwelling Unit
Flow from a culvert, sewer or other channel.
Discharge
The topmost section of an entablature.
Cornice
A circulation pattern in which channels spread out from a central point.
Radial Pattern
The study of the form or structure of anything.
Morphology
A repetitive dimension used in architectural design and planning.
Module
A stone of great size, especially in ancient construction.
Megalith
A freestanding canopy supported by columns symbolically sheltering an altar, throne or tomb.
Baldacchino
An arrangement that is neat, efficient, harmonious and comprehensible.
Order
The purpose for which a building is intended to be used.
Occupancy
The aesthetic or pleasurable features of a place or facility.
Amenities
A building or portion thereof used for the gathering together of 50 or more persons.
Assembly Building
A system of standardized units or sections for simplified construction or flexibility.
Modular
Referring to a disability which makes a person unable to walk an therefore confined to a wheelchair.
Non-ambulatory
Standards or rules by which something is tested.
Criteria
The geographic area from which the participants in an activity are drawn, such as the customers of a shopping center or the employees of a manufacturing plant.
Catchment
A three-dimensional volume that has density and bulk.
Mass
Special permission granted to an owner permitting a deviation from zoning requirements normally applicable to the property in question.
Variance
A law by which a government regulates and controls the character and use of property.
Zoning Ordinance
The legal means whereby land use is regulated and controlled for the welfare of the community.
Zoning
The right held by one party to make limited use of the property of another.
Easement
A use for property which is no longer permitted by the zoning ordinance. Unless it is unsafe, such a use is generally allowed to continue.
Nonconforming Use
The volume within which a building may legally be placed.
Zoning Envelope
A determining factor or characteristic.
Parameter
A flat or level surface.
Plane
Construction to resist the spread of fire, as specified in the applicable building code.
Fire-resistive Construction
The unique characteristics of a place which relate to a specific behavior or a particular activity.
Behavior Setting
Derived from observation, experience or experiment, and not based on theory.
Empirical
The separation of an entity into its components, so that it may be examined.
Analysis
A bank of earth, often piled up against a wall.
Berm
The type, arrangement and quality of dwelling units in a given area.
Housing
A division of urban land, normally private property, which is surrounded by public streets, and which is officially established and recorded.
Block
In Roman architecture, an oblong building used for public administration, from which early Christian churches evolved.
Basilica
Pertaining to symbolic representation of ideas or subjects by means of images.
Iconographic
The study of the quality, aspects and perception of beauty.
Aesthetics
The science of sound and sound control.
Acoustics
The rate at which a given material conducts heat, per inch of thickness.
Conductivity (k)
An area of land designed for industrial uses and developed as a unit.
Industrial Park
An imaginary line on the ground surface connecting all points of equal elevation.
Contour
The elimination of segregation or discrimination in public facilities by making such facilities available to persons of all races.
Integration
A term used by Lynch to describe the ease with which parts of a city can be recognized and organized into a coherent pattern. Also known as legibility.
Imageability
Referring to construction in which fire resistance is obtained by using wood structural members of specified minimum sizes.
Heavy Timber
A consistent, orderly or pleasing arrangement of the elements of a building or other work.
Harmony
One of many apartment units contained in a multi-floor building and accessible by elevators.
High-rise Apartment
One or more spaces designated for physically handicapped persons, requiring special design and dimensions.
Handicapped Parking
A form of land ownership in which the owner has absolute title, which can be transferred by sale or bequest.
Fee Simple
A concept developed by Ebenezer Howard in which all land would be owned by the community, the city would be economically balanced and self-contained and a permanent belt of farmland would surround the city.
Garden City
A public body which provides and manages housing, particularly for low-income families.
Housing Authority
A style of European architecture developed in the late Renaissance in reaction to classical forms, characterized by elaborate curves, scrolls and ornamentation.
Baroque
A type of residential siting in which a series of housing units are grouped closely together and surrounded by open space.
Cluster
A preliminary sketch or plan
Equisse
