Architectural Terms
(and what they really mean)
- Sense of Entry
- The front door is big and far away.
- Human Scale
- Less than 400 feet tall.
- Skewed Grid
- The design looked too boring with a regular grid.
- Pedestrian-Oriented
- Doesn’t have enough parking.
- Contextual
- Is surrounded by a lot of other buildings
the architect couldn’t tear down.
- Theoretical
- Nobody in their right mind would ever consider
building the crazy thing.
- Signature Building
- You can’t afford it.
- Less Is More
- The designer ran out of ideas.
- Classically Proportioned
- Traced out of a book of Greek architecture.
- Postmodern
- Traced out of a book of Roman architecture.
- International Style
- No country will take responsibility for it.
- Deconstructivist
- The backhoe ran into it during construction—and
they liked it.
- Seismically Designed High Rise
- In an earthquake, the structure will not collapse,
but will drop all of its glass and stone panels into
the street turning pedestrians into a stew-like mush
of pureed flesh.
- Jury
- Firing squad.
- Design Review Board
- Failed architecture majors.
- Architecture Student
- Egotistical masochist with no money.
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