Glossary

A number of terms used in this e-book have particular meaning in relation to architecture and building. These terms are explained below.

 The author wrote all of these definitions.

Abutment - The end bearing, or support of an arch, or series of arches (c/f. springing).

Acroterion (plural: acroteria) - Ornament at the apex or ends of a pediment or gable (refer: finial)

Aedicule - A niche or opening framed by columns (or pilasters) supporting an entablature, usually with a pediment. Also known as: temple front.

Age Small Home - The Small Homes Service of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects (RVIA), in conjunction with The Age newspaper operated between 1947 and 1961. It sold plans of comparatively inexpensive and ingenious architect-designed houses to the public.

Angles - External corners,

Apronwork - A decorative panel below a window cill, often ornamented with a fan or scroll.

Arcade - A series of arches.

Arch - A curved load-bearing structure of wedge-shaped (voussoirs) bearing on each other in compression. Types of arches include: segmental (low arc), round (semi-circular) horseshoe (three-quarter circle), lancet, pointed (Gothic), trefoil, ogee, four-centered (segmental with round haunches), Tudor (pointed four centered), shouldered (corbelled haunches), relieving (taking load over another arch) etc.

Architrave - Ornamental moulding around window or door openings. usually in timber and externally sometimes applied in render.

Arris - A sharp corner edge, where two planes join.

Art Deco - Abstracted and geometric, applied Modernist ornamentation, fashionable from 1925 to 1940.

Arts & Crafts (English) - A style of architecture in England in the 1880s which valued hand-craftsmanship and use of natural materials. Buildings and decoration must show that they are handmade, and not by machines. It was influenced by the writings of John Ruskin. Designers included; Morris & Co., William Morris, Philip Webb, William Lethaby and Norman Shaw.

Art Nouveau - A decorative style in architecture around 1900-1910; with asymmetrical sinuous and organic forms. Externally it was typically depicted in render, leadlight and wrought iron.

Asbestos cement (‘fibro-cement') - Sheet cladding material, consisting of a composition of asbestos fibres, set in Portland Cement. It was manufactured locally from 1917, now discredited and glass fibres substituted for asbestos.

Ashlar - Stone that has been squared and laid in regular courses with fine joints. Render on the external walls of Victorian buildings was often ruled to imitate this, while weatherboards were sometimes similarly imitative, (ashlar boards).

Astylar - Classical facade without columns or pilasters.

Asymmetrical - Not reflective about an axis; opposite to symmetrical.

Axis (plural: axes) - The centre-line or fulcrum of a symmetrical composition, one side of which reflects the other.

Banded column - Column with shaft interrupted by rectangular blocks. Band (of a shaft) -moulding(s) encircling Early English, Gothic, Pier shaft.

Balustrade - A railing, usually along the edge of a balcony or verandah.

Bargeboard (barge) - Projecting boards facing the gable of a building; sometimes quite ornately decorated (girth fretwork).

Basalt - (Refer; bluestone)

Base (cf. pedestal, plinth) - The lowest part of a column, (unless the base rests on a pedestal). Greek Doric columns uniquely have no base.

Basilica - Rectangular hall with double colonnade and apse for altar at one (east) end, used by the Romans for law courts and other assemblies and later for the basic Christian church form. Usually with a raised central section, with clerestory windows, and the main entrance at the opposite (west) end.

Batter - To step back or gently slope inward, a wall or embankment. To be smaller at the top than at the bottom.

Bay - A principal area or division in the architectural arrangement of a building- The divisions may be marked by fenestration, buttresses or pilasters in elevation; or roof structure in plan.

Bay-window - A window forming a recess in a room, projecting outward from a wall. It may be rectangular, semi-polygonal (canted bay-window. q.v.) or semi-circular (bow. q.v.).

Bellied - Swelling, or bulging in a continuous line.

Belvedere (c/f loggia) - A terrace or room erected above a roof or on high land, for the enjoyment of a fine view.

Bichromatic brickwork - Exposed brickwork in two colours ranging from cream to dark brown, often in bold designs.

 Billet (c/f dentil) - A decorative moulding, formed by cutting regular notches in several (alternating) bands, in Romanesque buildings.

Blind (tracery or arcading) - Applied to the surface of a wall or closed behind.

Bluestone (basalt) - A dark, fine-grained igneous rock, usually quarried from Western Victoria and often used for plinths, window and door sills and occasionally for walls.

Brace - Angled timber support to strengthen roof structure. If to a rafter, a strut.

Bracket - A projecting piece of stone, timber or other material, often formed of a scroll or volute to carry, or appear to carry, a projecting weight such as a cornice or eave. In Victorian Italianate architecture, often applied along the eaves-line, or at a verandah post.

Breakpitch - A definite change in the pitch of a roof.

Breezeblock - Concrete block perforated in a decorative pattern; often used as screen wall in the 1950s and 1960s.

Breezeway - Open covered way, linking two parts of a building: usually in the 1950s to 1970s.

Bressumer - A massive beam, sometimes curved, spanning a wide opening. such as a verandah.

Bullnose - A profile curved through 90 degrees. Often used for verandah roofs in corrugated iron.

Bungalow - Californian - Architectural style popular for houses of the 1920s and early 1930s. It is characterised by low pitched gable-roofs, verandah with bressumers supported by masonry pylons, wall-hung timber shingles, random rubble masonry and roughcast cement render. Other versions include: Indian, Craftsman. English, etc.

Canted - Angled or cut-off corner, forming polygonal plan (e.g. canted bay-window).

Capital - The topmost member, usually decorated, of a column or pilaster and commonly in the Classical orders. It may support an entablature.

Capping, Capping piece - The uppermost part, placed on top, continuously, and usually wider.

Cartouche - A framed panel or tablet, often elaborately decorated, based on the shape of a scroll, developed in the Renaissance.

Casement sash - A window sash, hinged at one side to swing open, usually outwards.

Cast-iron - An iron-carbon alloy of high carbon content. It is easily poured whilst molten into moulds, but too hard and brittle to be formed by hammering, rolling or pressing.

Catenary curve - Curve in the shape of a chain hanging freely from two points.

Chain-link wire mesh - Open weave fabric formed of fine gauge wire strands, twisted at their junctions as a diamond pattern.

Chamfer (or bevel, - c/f splay, canted) - A small splay to a corner. (arris). A hollow chamfer is concave.

Chevron - A moulding or groove forming a zigzag decoration. Found in Romanesque buildings particularly.

Chinolserie - European imitation or evocation of Chinese design. It often included repeated geometric patterns. Popular in eighteenth century and early nineteenth century England, and other European countries.

Cill - (See:  Sill)

Classical - Derived from principles or language of the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome and developed by the Renaissance. The eighteenth century scholarly return to the Classical language is Neo-Classical.

Clemstory - Upper windows above an adjoining roof.

Clinker bricks - A hard-burnt red/blue brick with speckled glared imperfections.

Collonette - A small column

Column - A vertical structural member, circular in section. In Classical architecture it consists of a base, shaft and capital (q.v.) and carried an entablature.

Composite (order) - Roman Classical order incorporating elements of Ionic and Corinthian. It is very grand, festive and opulent.

Concave - An inward facing curve.

Console - An ornamental bracket or corbel in the form of an S curve in Classical architecture.

Convex - An outward facing curve - A series of projections, each stepped progressively farther forward with height. A common device on the brickwork of chimneys.

Corinthian - The most ornate of the three Greek orders, characterised by a bell-shaped capital (q.v.) with volutes and rows of acanthus leaves.

Cornice - Any projecting ornamental moulding finishing along the top of a building or below the eaves. In an interior, the horizontal moulding between walls and ceiling. In Classical architecture, the top, projecting section of an entablature (q.v.). Other styles also have a distinctive type of cornice.

Corrugated iron - Iron sheet covering formed in continuous wave profile to give rigidity- Available here 1852 - early 1900s, then replaced by steel. 26mm pitch was available 1890s to 1920.

Cove - A large concave moulding; often as a cornice.

Crenellated - Alternating indentations of a parapet. (Originally for defense, and for firing missiles through).

Cresting - Decoration along the ridge of a roof. Usually perforated cast - or wrought iron or terra-cotta.

Crimped Wire - Wire formed with regular intermittent undulations.

Crockets - Projecting decoration (often foliage) decorating angled edges (e.g. of spires, canopies, pew-ends or architraves).

Cubist - Modernist prismatic, crystalline or cuboid forms or decoration developed for architecture from Cubist painting (1907-14).

Curlicue - A decorative curl or twist-

Dado (height) - A decorative band, or moulding over a base.

Decorated (Gothic) - second English Medieval phase from late c13 to 1450. With multiple lancets pointed windows, ogee or s-curve tracery, complex vaulting, large clerestories and inscribed decoration. Refer: Early English and Perpendicular.

Dentlis - A band of small, square. tooth-like blocks, usually of a cornice.

Dividers - Vertical fins projecting above chimneys, sometimes fan-shaped.

Door-frame - Two upright members (lambs) and a head (lintel) over the doorway on which to hangs the door.

Door furniture - Any functional or decorative fitting for a door, including the hinges, handle, lock and fingerplate.

Doric - An order (q.v.) of Classical architecture. It is the plainest order; the capital is a disc.

Double-fronted - House front consisting of two principle bays, often stepped, perhaps with a central door or porch.

Double-hung sash window - A window with two sashes sliding vertically past each other within the frame.

Dwarf - Low (wall), not full height.

Dressed - Finely finished, intended to be visible (e.g. timber ready for painting)

Dressings - Finely worked (moulded or carved) stones, mouldings or decoration, as prominent and decorative door and window surrounds and as quoins at the angles.

Drafted - (c/f ruled) - circular stonework with separate flat tooled margins.

Early English - The first of three phases of the Gothic (q.v.) style in England, until the end of the Thirteenth Century. It is characterised by lancet (slender, pointed arch) windows and stiff-leaf (sculptured foliage) capitals.

Earthenware (or quarry) - A glazed or non-glazed non-vitreous ceramic, used for paving tiles. Usually coloured either cream or terracotta.

Eaves - The part of the roof, which overhangs beyond the line of the wall; sometimes decorated.

Edwardian - A period in architecture named after King Edward VII, who reigned between 1901 and 1910. The term is relevant to architecture between c1890 and 1920. In houses, distinguishing features include use of unglazed terra-cotta roofing tiles, ridge capping, chimneypots and finials, timber fretwork and turned timber posts to verandahs and gable ends and red brick walls and chimneys. Roof pitches become steeper and plans more complex. (Also: Federation and Queen Anne).

Elevation - Two-dimensional graphic representation of a building.

Encaustic - Late Victorian flooring tiles, which are patterned by baking in colours to form the surface of the tile and in geometric shapes.

Entablature - In Classical architecture, the upper part of an order, consisting of architrave (q.v.), frieze (q.v.) and cornice (q.v.).

Entasis - The very slight swelling on Classical columns, to correct the optical illusion of concavity resulting if the sides are straight.

Evidence - The information that can be found about the past by examining the fabric of places, historical documents and people's recollections.

Expressed - Visibly modelled, or represented in relief.

Fabric - All the physical material of a place (Australia ICOMOS, Burra Charter).

Façade - An exterior face, or the front of a building, which has some architectural expression. (c/f Frontispiece, elevation).

Face brickwork - Finely finished, intended to be visible.

Fanlight - Originally a fan-shaped window over a door, but now applied to any window in that position often rectangular.

Fascia - A timber member fixed to the end of a roof rafter that usually supports a spouting, sometimes with applied decoration.

Federation - (Refer; Edwardian)

Fenestration - Arrangement of windows.

Finial - A formal ornament placed at the top (refer: acroterion).

Fleche - A slender spire rising from the ridge of a roof (usually timber).

Flush - Two adjacent surfaces placed together on the same plane.

Fluting - The vertical grooves of a column shaft.

Foliage (c/f scrolling foliage) - Leaf-like ornament, usually Medieval.

French doors - A pair of doors, each of which often occupies little more than half the width of a normal door and am either half or fully glazed.

Fretwork - Decorative perforated and carved timber. (Often bargeboards, valance, brackets and screens).

Frieze - Any horizontal band of decoration, but very often on verandahs in cast-iron or timber.

Frontispiece - Special architectural expression of the principal entrance bay, or the principal façade of a building.

Gable - The triangular upper wall at the end of a pitched roof, sometimes with a decorated bargeboard or roughcast.

Gablet - A small ornamental gable, as the vertical extension of a wall, or over a niche, buttress or some other feature.

Galvanising - Corrosion-resistant coating of zinc applied to steel (earlier, iron) sheet.

Gambrel - Roof, generally hip which terminates in a small gable at the ridge.

Glaring bar - Vertical or horizontal bar within the window sash which holds the panes of glass.

Gothic - Architectural style characterised by verticality, with pointed arches and windows, buttresses, clerestory windows and roofs vaulted or with exposed timber structure. In England, divided into three phases, Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular.

Guilloche - A continuous Classical ornamental band or moulding, formed by two or more intertwining bands (as if links in a chain).

Guttae - Small block-shaped ornaments, resembling drops of water, used in a Doric frieze, or architrave.

Half-hip - Roof, generally gable, which terminates in a small hip at the ridge.

HaIf-timbering (or timbering) - Construction in which walls are built of interlocking and exposed vertical and horizontal timbers and the spaces are filled with non-structural walling or roughcast stucco. Often imitated in non-structural members, usually within gables as decoration.

Head - Top horizontal member of a frame (e.g. of a door, or window).

Heritage - Our cultural inheritance from the past that is the evidence of human activity from Aboriginal settlement through periods of European and Asian migration, to the present day in the built and natural environment.

Highlight - Window at high level.

Hip - Roof consisting of four sloping planes meeting at a ridge.

Historicist - Reviving historical detail nostalgically, out of the context of its historical period.

Hit and miss brickwork - Deletion of alternate bricks to form brick sized opening.

Hob - A panel over an opening, below ceiling level.

Inscribe - Contain within a shape, touching it at various points.

Interpretation - Explaining cultural significance to the community and to visitors, using signage, publications, displays, guides, etc.

Ionic - An order (q.v.) of Classical architecture. The capital has volutes or scrolls.

Italianate - An architectural style derived from the Italian villa architecture that became common in England in the Nineteenth Century and subsequently in Australia in the 1870s and 1880s. Commonly uses picturesque forms, the tower canted bay windows, bracketed eaves with friezes, arcading and lower pitch hip-roofs.

-ising - Tending towards (e.g. classicising, historicising).

Jetty - Project over (e.g. an upper floor, over a street).

Joist - Minor beam supporting a surface (e.g. floor, or ceiling), at regular intervals, supported on bearers.

Joinery - Windows, doors and their frames and other fine timber detail.

Kemp & Sheehan ventilators ventilation system using an updraft, through vertical metal cylinders, on the upper roof, terminating in conical metal caps. From 1899-1923, fitted to most schools and other public buildings in Victoria.

Keystone - The central culminating voussoir.

Label - A hood or drip (stone) moulding over an opening, usually returning for a short distance down the sides of the opening.

Lancet - (Refer: Early English).

Leadlight - A window having small panes of clear, coloured and painted glass connected with strips of lead (commonly and incorrectly called 'stained glass').

Light-pane - One division of a window divided by mullions.

Lintel (or Lintol) - A horizontal beam bridging an opening.

Loggia (c/f Belvedere) - An open (at least on one side) usually colonnaded, gallery, used as a meeting place. Loggias were first developed in Renaissance Italy.

Lozenge - Diamond shaped panel.

Margin - Band at the edge of stone blocks.

Marseilles tiles - Reddish, unglazed, terra-cotta tiles in a distinctive corrugated pattern which were originally imported from Marseilles, France in the 1880s and were soon made in Australia. They were very common in the Edwardian period. After 1908, they were also available in cement (concrete). From the 1930s glazed.

Medieval - Both Romanesque (Norman in England; c7-1140) and Gothic (1140-c1420).

Modern, Modernist - Architectural style from 1933 until c1975, characterised by rejection of historicism and ornament; rational expression of materials (including steel, concrete and glass) services (lighting, power. lifts and air conditioning) structure and function; but also pure clean forms and consideration of siting.

Moderne - Architectural style distinct from Modernist, characterised by horizontal Streamlined styling, with bands, round corners, steel-framed glazing, or Jazz vertical styling with stepped skyscraper forms. Decoration (perhaps Art Deco) has crystalline, geometric or abstracted forms. The style developed from the Exposition intemationale des arts décoratifs in Paris in 1925 and continued until about 1940.

Mould (moulding) - A member of construction or decoration, treated to introduce varieties of outline or contour in edges of surfaces, whether on projections or cavities, as on cornices, capitals, bases, door and window jambs and heads.

Oculus - A small circular panel or window, common in Edwardian architecture and often with leadlight glazing (plural: oculi).

Ogee - A double-curved or inverted s-shape. Victorian and Edwardian buildings have ogee spouting. (Refer: Cyma recta)

Open work - Decorative panel consisting largely of voids.

Order - In Classical architecture, a column with base, shaft, capital and entablature, decorated and proportioned according to an established mode: Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan or Composite.

Paling - Thin timber close-boarding split or sawn, fixed to a timber frame to form a fence.

Panel - A portion of a flat surface raised or recessed in relation to the surroundings and usually set off by a moulding, or some other decorative device. Found on Victorian doors in groups of four or six.

Parapet - The extension of a wall above the roof or what would otherwise be the eaves line- Usually between 400 and 1500mm in height and decorated with ornamentation such As moulded cornices, balustrade, pediments and nameplates.

Parge (pargetting, parging) - Decorative external plastering in repetitive patterns. Render for the inside of a chimney flue.

Party-wall - A wall common to two buildings of a terraced row.

Pavilion - A separate part of a building, with its own rectangle form and roof attached to the main building.

Pedestal (c/f  plinth, base) - A sub-structure below the base of a column (to give extra height, without modifying the proportion, or as the end of a balustrade, or of a statue, or vase.

Pediment - An element, usually triangular or curved in shape, over doors or windows or surmounting a parapet, derived from Greek architecture.

Pendant - Element suspended with decorative swollen lower ends (egg Pendant bargeboard q.v.)

Perpendicular (Gothic) - Third (last) English Gothic phase, in c14 to cl6, with straight vertical and horizontal elements, very flat arches, strong window transoms, mouldings framing doorways, blind fenestration panels, shallow mouldings, pale glass and complex vaulting including lieme or fan vaults.

Picket, Picket head - Light timber board fixed to timber rails at a regular spacing over a timber plinth and between timber posts in a fence. There is a decorative profile formed at the top of each picket.

Pier - A vertical load-bearing structural support, other than a column.

Pitch - Slope (measured in degrees), of a roof.

Place - A site, area, building or other work, group of buildings or other works together with associated contents and surroundings (Australia ICOMOS, Burra Charter, Article 1.1). A place could include a structure, ruin, archaeological site, garden or landscape modified by human activity.

Plinth, Plinth board - (c/f Base, Pedestal). The square section lowest component of the base of a column.  The plain, projecting lowest section of a wall.  Timber board placed on edge, on the ground beneath weatherboards, pickets or palings fixed to posts or stumps of a fence.

Polychromatic brickwork - Exposed brickwork in at least three colours ranging from creams to terracotta to dark brown and combined to form bold patterns.

Prismatic panel - Geometric repetitive low-relief form (e.g. lozenge).

Putti - Small chubby indents, often used for decoration. They derive from both cherubim and cupids.

Pylon - Rectangular section, tapering pier flanking an entrance (or verandah), or chimney usually Californian Bungalow or Egyptian in style.

Quatrefoil - Four symmetrical (or circular) leaf shapes inscribed within a circle. (Also trefoil – three shapes; and multi-foil).

Queen Anne - (Refer: Edwardian).

Quoin - A stone or brick used to reinforce or decoratively distinguish an external corner or edge or a wall from adjacent masonry. In Victorian architecture often non-structurally represented in polychromatic brickwork or raised render.

 Rail - A minor horizontal structural member (e.g. of a balustrade, fence, gate, door or window). It may be top rail, intermediate rail or bottom rail.

Railing - A balustrade.

Rafters - A series of inclined timber structural members to which a roof covering is fixed.

Raked - Sloping (e.g. a floor). Scraped out (e.g. brickwork joints. to about l0mm depth).

Random rubble - Un-coursed, unsquared, undressed stonework.

Render - A cement or lime coating, applied to external walls and often formed into decorative mouldings.

Renaissance - Architectural period deriving from Italy in 1420, until mid - c16, characterised by a return to ancient Roman motifs and humanism as well as technological innovation and professionalism-

Return - Continuation (e.g. of a moulding) after a change of direction, usually at 90° e.g.- up, down or around a corner.

Ridge - Uppermost point at which two intersecting planes of a roof meet. Sometimes decorative.

Rock-face - Axe-dressed stone surface.

Romanesque - Medieval architectural style, from c7 until the development of Gothic in 1140, characterised by round arches, groin vaults, clear bold forms and planning.

Rosettes - Circular decoration with a stylised floral motif usually in timber or metal.

Roughcast - External rendering, the top coat of which contains gravel, 5mm crushed stone or pebbles.

Ruled - Marked with shallow grooves or marker to indicate ashlar.

Rustication - The strong emphasis of the joints between squared stone blocks. Often imitated in render.

Sash - The moveable panel of a window. E.g. casement sash, double-hung sash (q.v.).

Scotia - A deep concave moulding.

Scolung foliage - Decoration with naturalistic forms, particularly acanthus leaves and abstract curving lines, derived from Classical Greece.

Section (or cross section) - Graphic representation of an imaginary transverse cut, taken (vertically) through a building. A horizontal section is a floor plan.

Segmental (head) - Arch formed by a segment of a circle, less than a semi-circle, and often much flatter.

Set-back - The distance from the front street boundary to the front wall face of a building.

Shingles - A flat thin rectangular timber tile as roof cladding or over walls, laid so that each tile overlaps the one below. Common for roofs in the Early Victorian period and in the Edwardian and 1930s period, shingled gables and balustrade.

Shiplap - Type of lining boards, which have rectangular section grooves between.

Sidelights - Fixed glass panels flanking a door or window opening. In Victorian and Edwardian buildings, often coloured or leadlight.

Sill - A horizontal timber member at the bottom of the frame of a window or door, on the external face to shed water. A masonry sill projects beyond the pane of the wall, below the timber sill. (also: cill).

Skewback - Lowest block of an arch, its underside is the springing (c/f).

Skillion (or lean-to) - Roof of a single plane.

Soffit - Underside of any architectural element.

Soldier course - A series of bricks on end, usually (as a coping) on top of a parapet, as a lintel or as a decorative band.

Spandrel - Triangle between the side of an arch, horizontal with its apex and vertical from its springing. Also, the triangle between two arches, in an arcade.

Spanish Mission - A domestic style of architecture during the 1920s and 1930s characterised by a vocabulary derived from Californian or Spanish buildings that included hand-tooled render walls, loggias pan tile roofs, wrought-iron decoration and arcaded masonry verandahs

Spindle - Small circular section rod, with turned decoration in the form of round grooves or moulds and with taped ends.

Spire - A slender elongated hip roof to (usually, a church) tower tapering to an acute point, either timber framed and clad, or stone. Types include: broach (octagonal. rising from a square base) needle (very thin) or crown (with legs or flying buttresses at corners).

Splay - A slope across the full width of a surface, often at 45 degrees; a large chamfer (c/f  canted).

Springing - The lowest point of an arch; the face of its bearing on the abutment (c/f and skewback).

Squinch - An arch or a series of corbelled arches, diagonally across an angle (e.g. the internal angles of a square tower, to support a polygonal or round dome, or spire).

State Bank house - House financed, designed and built by the State Savings Bank of Victoria under the Housing and Reclamation Act 1920, for its customers. G. Burridge Leith was the bank's Chief Architect. They were not built after 1939.

Steel - An alloy of carbon, iron or other metals malleable from ingot. Properties vary according to composition, type of heat treatment and mechanical working, but include strength, hardness, durability, abrasion resistance and corrosion resistance. It can be welded and machined.

Stop - Anything against which a moulding terminates, such as a projecting stone, or wood block.

Stop-chamfer - The decorative transition form a chamfer and a square arris.

Street-line - A line joining the front face of buildings along a street.

Streetscape - The architectural characteristics of a sequence of buildings along a street and their relationship to each other.

String-course - A horizontal band of masonry or render, extending across the façade, usually at floor level, or at the springing point of the windows in the wall. It may project from the wall plane and may be plain or richly ornamented.

Tapestry (bricks) - Mottled biscuit-coloured glazed decorative bricks with embossed curved combed patterns, popular in the 1930s.

Terra-cotta - Unglazed, slow-fired pottery produced from a fine clay, usually of a reddish colour and used to make wall decorations, chimney pots and roofing tiles. A common material of the Edwardian period. Later, glazed.

Timbering - (Refer: Half-timbering)

Tobin tube ventilators - System of ventilation developed by Mr Tobin of Leeds, England in 1874 and installed in most schools in Victoria from 1876. Tubes in walls link external cast-iron gratings below floor level to ventilators or internal walls at about 1.2m height, to enable up-draft venting.

Tooled - To work (stone) with tools to a shape.

Townscape - The architectural characteristics of a group of buildings and other elements, of the spaces between them and of their relationship to each other.

Tracery - Ornamental, intersecting, linear pattern in the upper part of a Gothic window, screen, panel or vault.

Transept - Transverse arms of a cruciform plan church, usually dividing the nave from the chancel.

Transitional - The period around the 1890s between Victorian and Edwardian architecture and incorporating elements from each period.

Transom - A horizontal member across an opening or panel (e.g. below a verandah valance. q.v.).

Trefoil - Three symmetrical (or circular) leaf shapes inscribed within a circle.  (Also: quatrefoil, multi-foil).

Triple window - Vertically divided into three equal sashes or panes.

Tripartite window - Vertically divided into three sashes or panes. Generally in Victorian double-hung sash windows, the outer panels are about one third the width of the central panel.

Tuckpointed - Method of finishing joints of face-brickwork, with mortar, coloured to match the bricks on which a lime-putty bead is run to form a crisp white delineation of the bonding. A common finishing treatment of polychromatic brickwork and the red brick of Edwardian architecture.

Turned timber - Shaped by the application of a blade while revolving on a lathe, to produce a decorated circular pattern. Used for Edwardian columns, balusters & finials.

Tuscan - Roman (order) supposedly derived from Etruscan Temples. Similar to Doric, it is the most utilitarian order, a squat column without ornamentation or fluting, associated with simple rural buildings, fortifications, prisons or institutions.

Valance - Fringe, usually for verandahs, between the posts. (Often spelt valence).

Vault - Arched ceiling of stone or brick, sometimes imitated in timber or plaster.

Vent - Aperture to enable ingress of fresh air to interiors. (Types: include sub floor, wall, roof, Tobin and Kemp & Sheehan).

Vermiculation - Decorative treatment on stone or render, of regular shallow channels, creating worm-like tracks.

Victorian - Period of architecture during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). In Victoria, generally the period up until the economic depression between c1892-95. Early Victorian is 1837-c1850, mid-Victorian c1859-1875 and late-Victorian, c1875-1895.

Volute - Spiral, scrolling form. The basis for the Ionic order consoles or brackets are often based on a volute.

Voussoirs - Trapezoidal shaped blocks of an arch, laid in compression, culminating in the keystone.

Voysey(an) - (Chimneys, parapets). Various architectural details influenced by the English Arts and Crafts movement architect Charles F. Anesley Voysey (1857-1941) who built generally houses from 1890-1915, which were plain and generally without historicist illusions and were tremendously influential. They have pebble-dash or rough cast render, horizontal easement windows, flat-top chimneys with pots and cured-top parapets, with flat-top piers.

Wavescroll - An undulating continuous scroll pattern as a frieze or banding ornament for classical architecture.

Window-wall - A timber modular window system developed by Stegbar in the 1960s with a square of top-hung sashes, over a chain-rail, versions of which are still available.

Wing-walls - walls extending out from the line of the front wall of a building, often dividing individual houses in terrace rows and sometimes decorated.

Woven wire mesh - Open weave fabric, formed from intertwined wire strands in continuous regular pattern.

Wrought iron - Almost pure iron; it is soft, malleable, tough, fatigue-resistant and easily worked. It may be worked into shape mechanically by forging, bending, rolling or drawing. It is no longer manufactured.