"So was I..."

Nikita Busyak Creates Architectural Drawings That Look Like They’re Illuminated With Real Lights

A simple flick of the switch can transform a home from dark and asleep to bright and full of life. Ukraine-based artist Nikita Busyak captures this effect in his enchanting pen and ink illustrations of cityscapes. In each architectural drawing, he digitally manipulates the windows so that they glow with golden light, making it seem as though someone is home.

150 Weird Words That Only Architects Use by Rory Stott

For most students of architecture, the first few years of learning involve a demanding crash course in architectural jargon. From learning terms as obscure as “gestalt” to redefining your understanding of ideas as simple as “space,” learning the architectural lexicon is one of the most mind-bending processes involved in becoming a designer.

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It’s important to remember that this isn’t a list of words you should immediately stop using; simply be aware of who you’re talking to, and be sure that if you do use any of these words they are necessary and appropriate in the context you use them.

This list is by no means exhaustive; with over 750 comments across our original article and three Facebook posts, we had to cap it somewhere! Included here are the words that were mentioned most often and which we had encountered ourselves. So without further ado, and in no particular order, here is our readers’ list of 150 weird words that only architects use:

Architecture-specific jargon:

Pastiche

Sustainability

Ergonomy

Genius loci

Facade

Charette

Regionalism

Threshold

Massing

Enfilade

Materiality

Poché

Post-industrial

Diagrammatic

Vernacular

Modular

Deconstruction

Typology

Parametric

Program

Skin

Building envelope

Vault

Arcade

Fenestration

Truncated

Parti

Flâneur

Phenomenology

Brutalism

Cantilever

Curvilinear

Rectilinear

Miesian

Corbusian

Permaculture

Blobitecture

Exurbia

Walkability

Pilotis

Verticality

Rebate

Mullion

Muntin

Gentrification

Stylobate

Simple words given new meaning by architects:

Concept

Space

Fabric (urban or building)

Metaphor

Legibility (of something other than writing)

Dimension (meaning a characteristic of something)

Moment

Celebrate

Negotiate

Dynamic

Language

Context

Gesture

Proud (“the countertop is proud of the cabinet”)

Taxonomy

Hierarchy

Scale

Section

Formal

Nodes

Pods

Grain

Extrapolate

Device

Elevation

Obscure words that architects overuse (or misuse):

Iconic

Organic

Dichotomy

Eclectic

Kitsch

Sequence

Stasis

Interstitial / Interstice

Iteration

Juxtapose/Juxtaposition

Stereotomic

Tectonics (and architectonics)

Liminal

Articulate

Ephemeral

Domesticity

Anthropogenic

Regenerate

Hybrid

Generative

Ambiguity

Catalyst

Penetrate

Appropriate

Inspiration

Contemporary

Amalgamation

Performative

Hegemony

Curate

Bifurcate

Superimpose

Confluences

Gestalt

Zeitgeist

Banal

Blasé

Motifs

Procession

Homogenous

Palimpsest

Paradigm

Dissonance

Adjacencies

Parallax

Assemblage

Aesthetic

Monolithic

Uniformity

Morphology

Duality

Nuance

Transient

Redundancy

Robust

Bespoke

Holistic (sometimes even wholistic)

Simultaneity

Esoteric

Concretization

Schism

Unusual terms or phrases that architects love:

Play with (light, space, materials)

Human scale

Create/provide a gesture

How the ____ is received by the ____

Spatial composition

Map out

Explores the notion

Programmatic adjacencies

Activate the space

Public Realm

Outdoor room

Strange concepts within architecture:

Solid/Void

Interiority/Exteriority

Push/Pull

Bottom up/Top down

Transparency/Opacity

Served and Service

yea lol

For a long fucking time

with why my adderall was having such uneven effects and varying efficacy

and the weird pattern of what made it work and not work and if it was building up in my system or not

and fucking nobody told me I shouldn’t drink a glass of Kool-Aid to take the pills with

or eat fucking Pop-Tarts or Life cereal

this is the most useful information I have ever received from tubr and it seems to be confirmed by several other places upon searching