Types

Country houses, summer houses, or villas in Russia.

Farm buildings, generally of the 17th to early 19th century, where dairy products are made and stored, usually supervised by country ladies. Distinguished from "dairy plants" by their lack of mechanization. For subsidiary agricultural buildings devoted primarily to the care of milk, whether mechanized or not, prefer "milk houses."

Relatively large structures for sheltering and milking dairy cows, typically with at least a few dozen stalls and milking equipment; for smaller structures to house only a few cows, use "cow house"; for large structures used to provide beef cattle housing, use "cattle barns"; for shelters with one or more open sides, use "cowsheds."

Farms chiefly devoted to the raising of dairy cattle and the production of milk, butter, and cheese.

Buildings built after the early 19th century, not found only on farms, for the mechanized processing, storing, or selling of milk and milk products. Distinguished from "dairies (non-mechanized)" by the use of mechanization. For subsidiary agricultural buildings devoted primarily to the care of milk, often with little or no mechanization, prefer "milk houses."

Raised indoor platforms at or along one end of halls or similar large rooms as places of honor or prominence, as would be reserved for dignitaries, officers, or speakers. For, usually smaller, indoor or outdoor raised platforms used by speakers or conductors, prefer "podiums (platforms)."

Barriers to confine, control, or obstruct the flow of water.

Large rooms or buildings set aside for dancing, but which may be used for other social functions. Distinguished from "ballrooms" by their less formal nature.

Rooms freed from light or lighted by a safelight for handling and processing light-sensitive materials.

No description is available for this term.

Stones on which the date of the construction of a building is inscribed, located on the exterior of the building. Date stones may appear over the main entrance, on a cornerstone, or in other locations on the building.

Camps providing care and activities for children during daylight hours, usually including outdoor activities during warm seasons, but not including overnight housing.

Buildings housing professionally-run facilities that care for groups of preschool children on a partial or full-day basis, usually while their parents are at work, but differing from nursery schools in typically offering no formal education to the children.

Buildings housing educational institutions, usually elementary or secondary schools, where classes are held only on weekdays and that do not provide any boarding facilities.

Buildings that house places of detention primarily for debtors.

Truss bridges having the roadway or track on top of the trusses.

Uncovered wood or metal platforms, usually attached to structures and often raised off the ground or on rooftops.

Stores selling foods already prepared or requiring little preparation for serving, such as cooked meats, cheeses, and salads, to be taken out or to be eaten on the premises.

Alluvial deposits at the mouths of rivers commonly forming nearly flat, fan-shaped plains of considerable area traversed by many separate branches of water.

Small, private, informal rooms in houses or apartments used for work, reading, or relaxation.

Buildings that house clinics specializing in the examination and treatment of issues having to do with teeth and gums.

Spaces where teeth are examined, X-rayed, cleaned, extracted, cavities filled, and other minor surgeries are performed on teeth by or under the supervision of a dentist; they typically include a waiting room and a room or rooms with a chair and other equipment for the examination of patients.

Buildings that house schools devoted to training dentists.

Bands of small, rectangular, toothlike blocks, usually along the underside of a cornice; a characteristic ornament of classical and classicizing styles.

Large stores selling many different kinds of articles arranged in different departments or areas of the store.

Territories or other administrative bodies that are subject to the control of another nation, while yet remaining outside the official boundaries of that nation.

Buildings, lots, or other facilities where goods, materials, or vehicles are deposited or stored. For facilities where transportation vehicles stop along a route for the purpose of loading and unloading passengers or goods rather than primarily for the storage of vehicles or goods, use "stations."

Broad category of dry regions occurring where rainfall is less than 50 cm per year; usually barren and treeless.

Buildings providing permanent showrooms, galleries, or other display spaces for designers' work or for vendors of products for the design professions.

Studios in which one or more master designers create designs, supervise assistants, and instruct pupils.

Places of relatively short confinement for youthful offenders pending transfer or trial.

Areas designated, usually by a governmental agency, as appropriate for industrial and economic development, often to improve stagnant economies and bring employment opportunities into the region.

Embankments built along a river or sea and set at some distance from it to control or retain flood waters. For embankments built only to prevent flooding of low-lying land use "levees."

Restaurants originally built to resemble a railway dining car. They are sometimes prefabricated and often have a long, narrow floor plan; they are further distinguished by serving short-order menu items, and usually having a counter and booths at which customers may eat. They were originally often located along roadways, although today they may also be found in urban environments.

Small dining areas, usually extensions of kitchens or pantries; for such areas when they are extensions of living rooms, use "dining alcoves."

Use both for large dining rooms, as in a college, and for buildings containing a dining hall.

Rooms in private houses or public establishments in which dinner and other principal meals are taken and which are furnished for this purpose.

Schools serving or supported by an ecclesiastical diocese, often including training in theology.

Facilities where the distilling and blending of spirits is carried on, including processes by which evaporation of water and subsequent condensation of the alcoholic beverage is achieved.

Commercial buildings located regionally that combine large warehouse facilities with sales and office spaces.

Territorial divisions as for administrative or electoral purposes, or settlement areas with distinguishing characteristics.

Long narrow excavations, usually with sloping sides, dug in the earth for defense, drainage, or irrigation.

Barriers built across waterways to turn aside all or some of the flow from its usual course into a pipe, trench, or channel, as to bypass construction work.

Highways with a broad median strip extending down the center, designed to prevent collisions and headlight glare from oncoming traffic. Highways with a broad median strip extending down the center, designed to prevent collisions and headlight glare from oncoming traffic.

Artificial basins excavated and often built up with masonry or another material, and often fitted with flood-gates, into which boats or ships are received for purposes of landing, loading and unloading, or for repair. The earliest known docks date to ca. 2500 BCE in Egypt. The plural term is often used to refer to a single such artificial basin. When such spaces are unoccupied and are alongside a landing place, use "berths (waterfront spaces)"; use "slips (waterfront spaces)" when such water spaces are unoccupied and set between adjacent piers or perpendicular to landing places. Use "dockyards" for the group of landing places in ports or for port facilities as a whole. For the structures that surround a dock, excluding the space occupied by water, prefer "piers (marine landings)" or "wharves." For structures used for docking for various purposes, use "dry docks," "wet docks," or "floating docks." Distinguished from the structures, "docks (general waterside structures)," which in casual, modern usage may refer to any waterside structure supporting people or their activities.

Small houses or dwellings for a dog or a small number of dogs. For larger structures intended to house many dogs, use "kennels (animal housing)."

Houses in which two pens are separated by a passageway, and the whole is covered by a single roof. Originally constructed of logs, they may now be built from any material, the passageway being the prime characteristic of these houses.

Refers to passages, sharing a roof common with the rest of the building, connecting two parts of a log house of the American folk architecture tradition. Distinguished from "breezeways" by its folk architecture and log house context and its common roof.

Multipurpose boating structures consisting of a group of piles driven close together and bound firmly into a single cluster, placed at the entrance of a dock or along a quay, wharf, or beach.

Rounded vaults comprising spheres or portions of spheres sitting on circular, elliptical, or polygonal bases, forming the roof of any building or part of a building. They are constructed so that they exert equal thrust in all directions.

Refers to the architectural order characterized by columns generally without bases, relatively simple capitals, and a frieze composed of alternating triglyphs and metopes.

Structures projecting from a sloping roof usually housing a window or ventilating louver.

Buildings containing a number of rooms or suites that provide shelter in a communal environment, particularly those at a school, monastery, orphanage, or other such facility.

Buildings containing a number of rooms or suites that provide shelter in a communal environment, particularly those at a school, monastery, orphanage, or other such facility.

Rooms containing a number of beds and serving as communal sleeping quarters, as in an institution, fraternity house, or passenger ship.

Houses with separate dwelling units for two individual families placed side by side and separated horizontally by party walls. When the units are set one above the other use "duplex houses."

Religious houses for communities of both men and women, dwelling in contiguous establishments, united under the rule of one superior.

Roofs in which the common rafters rest on purlins which transfer the loads to principal rafters or trusses.

Roofs formed by the junction of two gable roofs with a valley between them, resembling the letter M in section.

Windows having two vertically sliding sashes, each closing a different part of the window; the weight of each sash is counter-balanced for ease of opening and closing.

Houses having two rows of rooms in each story of the floor plan, often with a corridor between the two rows.

Birdhouses, often quite large, for doves or pigeons, usually having small interior niches to facilitate nesting and breeding.

Core or central areas of cities or towns that are either the oldest areas of the city or the core business areas. The term is thought to derive from these areas, as the oldest areas, having the lowest street numbers; alternatively, term may derive from the development of New York City, where the oldest section is in the south, at the bottom of a map.

Movable bridges in which one or more span sections can be pivoted upward by means of chains, cables, or other ropelike devices; if the sections are pivoted by counterweights, use "bascule bridges."

Formal reception rooms, as in a home or hotel, or rooms to which one may retire for privacy or rest.

Rooms for dressing and the toilet, usually opening from a bedroom.

Spaces set aside for the planning and practice of military drills.

Buildings that house banks designed to allow customers to transact business, primarily to make withdrawals and deposits, from their automobiles. Customers typically pull up to a window on the bank building to access automated or human tellers without leaving their cars. Such banks typically also have interior spaces where customers may transact business during designated hours.

Restaurants optimized for customers to park and remain in their automobile for service rather than entering the building. They are usually characterized by having rows of sheltered parking areas to which restaurant staff bring food to customers seated in their cars. They usually have a limited menu of fast food, such as burgers and fries. There may be a microphone at each parking slot to allow the placing of orders.

Designates outdoor movie theaters designed to accommodate patrons viewing from their automobiles.

Restaurants designed and optimized to allow customers to drive automobiles alongside the building to take away fast food without exiting the cars. The design usually incorporates a window or microphone station where orders are placed from the cars, and a window where the food is delivered and paid for.

Refers to approach roads, usually private, for vehicles providing access to dwellings or other buildings.

Pointed arches with radii that are located within the span of the arch, whether or not the centers are above, at, or below the springing.

Folding testers, such as those found on a press bed.

Retail stores that include a pharmacy and often sell other articles, such as toilet requisites, stationery, magazines, newspapers, and light refreshments.

Long, smooth, cigar-shaped hills of glacial origin.

Enclosures or narrow, artificial basins that hold single ships, boats, or other watercraft, and from which the water may be pumped or let out to leave the vessel dry for the purpose of maintenance, repair, or shipbuilding. (Sometimes also used for building ships.). Dry docks are known in the historical record as early as the 10th century in China.

Masonry walls constructed without mortar.

Structures of relatively simple design, erected to aid in the drying by flowing air of, for example, food, textiles, hops, or bricks.

Ranches that provide entertainment for paying guests and tourists who wish to learn to ride horses or bulls, herd cattle, or do other activities associated with ranching.

Places where refuse, discarded excess materials, or temporarily useless products of human activities are deposited.

Hills or ridges of sand, typically in deserts, formed by shifting winds.

Subterranean rooms or structures that comprise strongly fortified cells or other rooms of confinement; the term originally derived from such areas below the keep or donjon of a castle.

Apartments with rooms on two levels.

Domestic structures with separate dwelling units for two individual families placed one above the other. When the units are placed side by side use "double houses."

Accommodations designed or adapted for residential occupancy, usually but not always intended for human occupancy rather than for animals. For hotels or other buildings intended for use by transients see "public accommodations" and its narrower concepts. For the locale which constitutes the center of an individual's domestic life, personal relationships, and interests, together with the feeling of comfort and satisfaction that it conveys, use "home (concept)." For the collective concept referring to types of living arrangements of a particular group, use "housing."