(floor plans, ground plans, or roof plans) show the room, building or city by looking down on it.  A floor plan shows the walls cut through, so that we understand the width and length of the room,  but not its height.  (If shadows are included in the plans we can sometimes get a sense of height.)  We can also understand the character of walls and other supporting elements like columns, their size, thickness, and variation.  Often this will allow us to infer the means of construction:  a masonry building will look different in plan from a steel building.  A map is a plan.

cut through rooms, buildings or cities vertically.  Sections show height and width or length, but not both.  Sections also show us the nature of the grounding of the building, its floor, how high ceilings are, and what the shape of the roof is.   A section of a building on an earth plinth will have a very different section from a wood building with a raised floor.  A section of a building or city on a hill will show the hill's relationship to the landscape around it, as well as the buildings' relation to the hill.

is what we call the facade or "front" of the building, or its several fronts.  Denny Hall, for instance, has an impressive façade or front elevation, and less formal side and rear elevations.  We think elevations are more realistic than plans or sections, but in fact it is difficult to see a building in true elevation, since we look up at them, and/or we can't get far enough back from them to see the whole thing.  Thus the elevation is just as "abstract" a drawing as plan and section.

– is what we use to reduce a building or city to fit on a page to see it in a comprehensible format.   The most important characteristic of scale is its comparative property:  if you see a plan of Husky Stadium next to a plan of Kane Hall at the same scale,  you would know immediately that Husky Stadium is vastly bigger.  We often use the human figure to show scale.

Vertical posts that hold up the lintel (beam) (example stonegenge)

Horizontal beam that is held up on either end by 2 posts

– is a large upright standing stone. Menhirs may be found singly as monoliths, or as part of a group of similar stones. Their size can vary considerably; but their shape is generally uneven and squared, often tapering towards the top. Menhirs are widely distributed across Europe, Africa, and Asia, but are most numerous in Western Europe; in particular in Ireland, Great Britain and Brittany. In northwest France there are 1,200 menhirs.^[2] They originate from many different periods across pre-history, and were erected as part of a larger Megalithic culture that flourished in Europe and beyond.

The function of Menhirs has provoked more debate than practically any other issue in European pre-history. Over the centuries they have variously been thought to have been used by Druids for human sacrifice, used as territorial markers or elements of a complex ideological system, or functioned as early calendars.

– a natural building material made from sand, clay, water, and some kind of fibrous or organic material (sticks, straw, and/or manure), which the builders shape into bricks using frames and dry in the sun. Adobe buildings are similar to cob and mudbrick buildings. Adobe structures are extremely durable and account for some of the oldest existing buildings in the world. In hot climates, compared with wooden buildings, adobe buildings offer significant advantages due to their greater thermal mass, but they are known to be particularly susceptible to earthquake damage.^[2]

a conical tent traditionally made of animal skins or birch bark and are popularised by Native Americans of the Great Plains. The tipi was durable, provided warmth and comfort in winter, was dry during heavy rains, and was cool in the heat of summer. Tipis could be disassembled and packed away quickly when a tribe decided to move and could be reconstructed quickly when the tribe settled in a new area.

In archaeology and anthropology, a long house or longhouse is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building built by peoples in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe and North America. Many were built from timber and often represent the earliest form of permanent structure in many cultures. Types include the Neolithic long house of Europe, the Medieval Dartmoor longhouse and the various types found in different cultures among the Indigenous peoples of the Americas

.

a type of Ancient Egyptian tomb in the form of a flat-roofed, rectangular structure with outward sloping sides that marked the burial site of many eminent Egyptians of Egypt's ancient period. Mastabas were constructed out of mud-bricks or stone.

a structure where the outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces (at least four faces including the base). The square pyramid, with square base and four triangular outer surfaces, is a common version.

a truncated pyramid or tower or an object shaped like one. In common usage, the term pylon is generally taken to refer to any elongated support structure. Specific objects include:

A straight line indicating center of symmetry of a solid or plane figure.

forms the crowning member of a column or a pilaster. The capital projects on each side as it rises, to support the abacus and unite the form of the latter (normally square) with the circular shaft of the column.

a hypostyle hall has a flat ceiling which is supported by columns, as in the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. In this case the columns flanking the central avenue are of greater height than those of the side aisles, and this allows openings in the wall above the smaller columns, through which light is admitted over the aisle roof, through clerestory windows.

To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane. What is actually performed is a lowering of the field, leaving the unsculpted parts seemingly raised. The technique thus involves considerable chiselling away of the background, which is a time-consuming exercise with little artistic effect when applied to the background further away from the immediate vicinity of the depicted form itself.

massive structures built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels. Built in receding tiers upon a rectangular, oval, or square platform, the ziggurat was a pyramidal structure with a flat top. Sun-baked bricks made up the core of the ziggurat with facings of fired bricks on the outside. The facings were often glazed in different colors and may have had astrological significance. Kings sometimes had their names engraved on these glazed bricks. The number of tiers ranged from two to seven. It is assumed that they had shrines at the top, but there is no archaeological evidence for this and the only textual evidence is from Herodotus.^[3] Access to the shrine would have been by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a spiral ramp from base to summit. The Mesopotamian ziggurats were not places for public worship or ceremonies. They were believed to be dwelling places for the gods and each city had its own patron god. Only priests were permitted on the ziggurat or in the rooms at its base, and it was their responsibility to care for the gods and attend to their needs. The priests were very powerful members of Sumerian society.

A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that surrounds a castle, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices. In later castles the moat or water defences may be largely ornamental.

Fresco (plural either frescos or frescoes) is any of several related mural painting types (Buon fresco, A secco, mezzo-fresco) , done on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Italian word affresco [afˈfresːko] which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes were often made during the Renaissance and other early time periods.

court or courtyard is an enclosed area, often a space enclosed by a building that is open to the sky. These areas in inns and public buildings were often the primary meeting places for some purposes, leading to the other meanings of court

.

Acropolis (Greek: Ακρόπολις) means "highest city" in Greek, literally city on the extremity and is usually translated into English as Citadel (akros, akron,^[1] edge, extremity + polis, city, pl. acropoleis). For purposes of defense, early people naturally chose elevated ground to build a new settlement, frequently a hill with precipitous sides. In many parts of the world, these early citadels became the nuclei of large cities, which grew up on the surrounding lower ground, such as modern Rome.

The megaron (plural megara) (Ancient Greek: μέγαρον) is the great hall of the Grecian palace complexes. It was a rectangular hall, fronted by an open, two-columned porch, and a more or less central, open hearth vented though an oculus in the roof above it and surrounded by four columns. It is the architectural predecessor of the classical Greek temple. It was used for poetry, feasts, worship, sacrifice, formal royal functions, councils, and is said to be where guests of the king would stay during their visits. Originally it was very colorful — made with the Minoan architectural order, the insides made of fired brick and a wooden roof supported on beams. The rooftop was tiled with ceramic and terracotta tiles.