Adobe is a building material made from earth and organic materials. Adobe is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of earthen construction, or various architectural styles like Pueblo Revival or Territorial Revival. Most adobe buildings are similar in appearance to cob and rammed earth buildings. Adobe is among the earliest building materials, and is used throughout the world.
Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "render" commonly refers to external applications. The term stucco refers to plasterwork that is worked in some way to produce relief decoration, rather than flat surfaces.
Building material is material used for construction. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, rocks, sand, wood, and even twigs and leaves, have been used to construct buildings. Apart from naturally occurring materials, many man-made products are in use, some more and some less synthetic. The manufacturing of building materials is an established industry in many countries and the use of these materials is typically segmented into specific specialty trades, such as carpentry, insulation, plumbing, and roofing work. They provide the make-up of habitats and structures including homes.
The year 1995 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.
A modular building is a prefabricated building that consists of repeated sections called modules. Modularity involves constructing sections away from the building site, then delivering them to the intended site. Installation of the prefabricated sections is completed on site. Prefabricated sections are sometimes placed using a crane. The modules can be placed side-by-side, end-to-end, or stacked, allowing for a variety of configurations and styles. After placement, the modules are joined together using inter-module connections, also known as inter-connections. The inter-connections tie the individual modules together to form the overall building structure.
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture. Stucco can be applied on construction materials such as metal, expanded metal lath, concrete, cinder block, or clay brick and adobe for decorative and structural purposes.
Siding or wall cladding is the protective material attached to the exterior side of a wall of a house or other building. Along with the roof, it forms the first line of defense against the elements, most importantly sun, rain/snow, heat and cold, thus creating a stable, more comfortable environment on the interior side. The siding material and style also can enhance or detract from the building's beauty. There is a wide and expanding variety of materials to side with, both natural and artificial, each with its own benefits and drawbacks. Masonry walls as such do not require siding, but any wall can be sided. Walls that are internally framed, whether with wood, or steel I-beams, however, must always be sided.
Earthbag construction is an inexpensive building method using mostly local soil to create structures which are both strong and can be quickly built.
Novelty architecture, also called programmatic architecture or mimetic architecture, is a type of architecture in which buildings and other structures are given unusual shapes for purposes such as advertising or to copy other famous buildings without any intention of being authentic. Their size and novelty means that they often serve as landmarks. They are distinct from architectural follies, in that novelty architecture is essentially usable buildings in eccentric form whereas follies are non-usable, purely ornamental buildings also often in eccentric form.
Precast concrete is a construction product produced by casting concrete in a reusable mold or "form" which is then cured in a controlled environment, transported to the construction site and maneuvered into place; examples include precast beams, and wall panels for tilt up construction. In contrast, cast-in-place concrete is poured into site-specific forms and cured on site.
Indian vernacular architecture the informal, functional architecture of structures, often in rural areas of India, built of local materials and designed to meet the needs of the local people. The builders of these structures are unschooled in formal architectural design and their work reflects the rich diversity of India's climate, locally available building materials, and the intricate variations in local social customs and craftsmanship. It has been estimated that worldwide close to 90% of all building is vernacular, meaning that it is for daily use for ordinary, local people and built by local craftsmen.
Eugene Tssui is an American architect noted for his use of ecological principles and "biologic" design, a term coined by Tssui himself in the 2010 issue of World Architecture Review. He has proposed a number of projects such as a bridge across the Strait of Gibraltar to connect the continents of Africa and Europe as well as a 2-mile-high tower capable of housing 1 million residents.
The Fab Tree Hab is a hypothetical ecological home design developed at MIT in the early 2000s by Mitchell Joachim, Javier Arbona and Lara Greden. With the idea of easing the burden humanity places on the environment with conventional housing by growing "living, breathing" tree homes.
GigaCrete refers to a family of green building products based on proprietary non-silica, non-toxic, non-combustible, cementitious, mineral-based binders combined with filler material. GigaCrete building materials do not contain silica-based sands or Portland cement. GigaCrete products are manufactured by a privately held company, GigaCrete, Inc., whose factory headquarters are located in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Flintstone House is a free-form, single-family residence in Hillsborough, California, overlooking and easily seen from the Doran Memorial Bridge carrying Interstate 280 over San Mateo Creek.
Earthquake-resistant or aseismic structures are designed to protect buildings to some or greater extent from earthquakes. While no structure can be entirely impervious to earthquake damage, the goal of earthquake engineering is to erect structures that fare better during seismic activity than their conventional counterparts. According to building codes, earthquake-resistant structures are intended to withstand the largest earthquake of a certain probability that is likely to occur at their location. This means the loss of life should be minimized by preventing collapse of the buildings for rare earthquakes while the loss of the functionality should be limited for more frequent ones.
Kendrick Bangs Kellogg is an American architect. An innovator of organic architecture, Kellogg built a wide assortment of distinctive buildings. Homes include the Lotus House, Wingsweep, the High Desert house, and the Onion House. Public buildings include the Hoshino Wedding Chapel in Japan and Charthouse restaurants.
The Mission Revival style was part of an architectural movement, beginning in the late 19th century, for the revival and reinterpretation of American colonial styles. Mission Revival drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century Spanish missions in California. It is sometimes termed California Mission Revival, particularly when used elsewhere, such as in New Mexico and Texas which have their own unique regional architectural styles. In Australia, the style is known as Spanish Mission.
California Hall is one of the original "classical core" Beaux-Arts-style Classical Revival buildings on the UC Berkeley campus. Construction began in 1903 under the lead of University Architect John Galen Howard after the university's adoption of the Phoebe Hearst master architectural plan for the Berkeley campus. The building opened in August, 1905. In 1982, it was named to the National Register of Historic Places, and is designated as an architectural feature of California Historic Landmark no. 946. In 1991, the Landmarks Preservation Committee of the City of Berkeley designated it Berkeley City Landmark no. 147. It currently houses the University of California Berkeley Chancellor's Office and the Graduate Division.
The Sala House is located on Albany Hill in Albany, California. It is the first house in the United States designed and built by architect Christopher Alexander. Built in 1983 and 1984, the Sala House was a collaboration of Alexander and Gary Black, who at the time were architecture professors at the University of California, Berkeley, working together with Bob Smith, David Tuttle, Seth Wachtel, and Andre and Anna Sala. The house was built to be the home for Andre and Anna Sala and their two children. A second wing was added in 1988.
