A beehive house is a building made from a circle of stones topped with a domed roof. The name comes from the similarity in shape to a straw beehive.
A beehive house is a building made from a circle of stones topped with a domed roof. The name comes from the similarity in shape to a straw beehive.
The ancient Bantu used this type of house, which was made with mud, poles, and cow dung. Early European settlers in the Karoo region of South Africa built similar structures known as corbelled houses. These white-washed structures [1] are described as coursed rubble on a circular plan, with each successive course smaller and slightly corbelled over the course below so that a conical shape is achieved as each course is completed. [2]
Beehive houses are some of the oldest known structures in Ireland and Scotland, [3] dating from as far back as around 2000 BC.[ citation needed ] Bee houses have also been built in the Italian peninsula, with some still being built as late as the 19th century in Apulia (south-eastern Italy). In Southern Italy, these houses are called trulli while its prehistoric Sardinian versions were referred to as nuraghi . [2]
A town called Harran in Turkey is also the location of houses that mimic the beehive architecture and they are still in existence today. The structures, which are clustered together like a termite colony, were said to have been constructed as windowless cones because it is the only way to achieve a roof without timber. [4]
An arch is a curved vertical structure spanning an open space underneath it. Arch can either support the load above it or perform a purely decorative role. The arch dates back to fourth millennium BC, but became popular only after its adoption by the Romans in the 4th century BC.
A dome is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a matter of controversy and there are a wide variety of forms and specialized terms to describe them.
In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the structure. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger" in England.
Dry stone, sometimes called drystack or, in Scotland, drystane, is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. A certain amount of binding is obtained through the use of carefully selected interlocking stones.
A clochán or beehive hut is a dry-stone hut with a corbelled roof, commonly associated with the south-western Irish seaboard. The precise construction date of most of these structures is unknown with the buildings belonging to a long-established Celtic tradition, though there is at present no direct evidence to date the surviving examples before c. 700 CE. Some associated with religious sites may be pre-Romanesque, some consider that the most fully intact structures date after the 12th century or later. It is where monks lived.
Vernacular architecture is building done outside any academic tradition, and without professional guidance. It is not a particular architectural movement or style, but rather a broad category, encompassing a wide range and variety of building types, with differing methods of construction, from around the world, both historical and extant and classical and modern. Vernacular architecture constitutes 95% of the world's built environment, as estimated in 1995 by Amos Rapoport, as measured against the small percentage of new buildings every year designed by architects and built by engineers.
Ashlar is a type of masonry that requires only a little mortar to bind it. The term can refer either to an individual stone that has been “finely dressed” until squared off, or to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, and is generally rectangular (cuboid). It was described by Vitruvius as opus isodomum or trapezoidal. Precisely cut "on all faces adjacent to those of other stones", ashlar is capable of requiring only very thin joints between blocks, and the visible face of the stone may be quarry-faced or feature a variety of treatments: tooled, smoothly polished or rendered with another material for decorative effect.
This page is a glossary of architecture.
A hut is a small dwelling, which may be constructed of various local materials. Huts are a type of vernacular architecture because they are built of readily available materials such as wood, snow, ice, stone, grass, palm leaves, branches, clay, hides, fabric, or mud using techniques passed down through the generations.
A corbel arch is an arch-like construction method that uses the architectural technique of corbeling to span a space or void in a structure, such as an entranceway in a wall or as the span of a bridge. A corbel vault uses this technique to support the superstructure of a building's roof.
A bracket is an architectural element: a structural or decorative member. It can be made of wood, stone, plaster, metal, or other media. It projects from a wall, usually to carry weight and sometimes to "...strengthen an angle". A corbel or console are types of brackets.
The history of construction traces the changes in building tools, methods, techniques and systems used in the field of construction. It explains the evolution of how humans created shelter and other structures that comprises the entire built environment. It covers several fields including structural engineering, civil engineering, city growth and population growth, which are relatives to branches of technology, science, history, and architecture. The fields allow both modern and ancient construction to be analyzed, as well as the structures, building materials, and tools used.
A catenary arch is a type of architectural arch that follows an inverted catenary curve. The catenary curve has been employed in buildings since ancient times. It forms an underlying principle to the overall system of vaults and buttresses in stone vaulted Gothic cathedrals and in Renaissance domes. It is not a parabolic arch.
Fahan is an area on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland, noted for a collection of clochán, or drystone beehive huts. Fahan lies below Mount Eagle on the southern coast of the Dingle peninsula, to the west of the fishing village of Ventry and to the east of the steep cliffs of Slea Head. Fahan has many antiquities, including cave dwellings, stone beehive huts, stone monuments and forts.
Musgum mud huts or Musgum dwelling units are traditional domestic structures built of mud by the ethnic Musgum people in the Maga sub-division, Mayo-Danay division, Far North Province in Cameroon. Referred to in Munjuk as Tolek, the dwellings are built in a variety of shapes, such as tall domed or conical dwellings or huts, some with a reverse-V shape, and others with geometric designs.
The field of Indigenous architecture refers to the study and practice of architecture of, for and by Indigenous people. It is a field of study and practice in the United States, Australia, Aotearoa, Canada, Arctic area of Sápmi and many other countries where Indigenous people have a built tradition or aspire translate or to have their cultures translated in the built environment. This has been extended to landscape architecture, urban design, planning, public art, placemaking and other ways of contributing to the design of built environments.
Cultures from pre-history to modern times constructed domed dwellings using local materials. Although it is not known when or where the first dome was created, sporadic examples of early domed structures have been discovered. Brick domes from the ancient Near East and corbelled stone domes have been found from the Middle East to Western Europe. These may indicate a common source or multiple independent traditions. A variety of materials have been used, including wood, mudbrick, or fabric. Indigenous peoples around the world produce similar structures today.
Etruscan architecture was created between about 900 BC and 27 BC, when the expanding civilization of ancient Rome finally absorbed Etruscan civilization. The Etruscans were considerable builders in stone, wood and other materials of temples, houses, tombs and city walls, as well as bridges and roads. The only structures remaining in quantity in anything like their original condition are tombs and walls, but through archaeology and other sources we have a good deal of information on what once existed.
Ancient Indian architecture ranges from the Indian Bronze Age to around 800 CE. By this endpoint Buddhism in India had greatly declined, and Hinduism was predominant, and religious and secular building styles had taken on forms, with great regional variation, which they largely retain even after some forceful changes brought about by the arrival of first Islam, and then Europeans.
A girna is a type of traditional corbelled hut found in rural areas in parts of Malta. They bear similarities with a number of dry stone vernacular building types found in other Mediterranean countries, and they are primarily used for storage or as temporary shelters. It is possible that in the past they were also used for human habitation.
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