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Definitions are based on:

• the Seattle Land Use and Zoning Code, 28.84 Definitions
• Websters New World Dictionary: Second College Addition, copyright 1970
• Preparing your own DESIGN GUIDELINES: A Handbook for Seattle’s Neighborhoods, Appendix A: Glossary
• www.pan.ci.seattle.wa.us

Amenity
Aesthetic or other features of a development that increase its marketability or usability to the public.

Arcade
A passageway, one side of which is an open span of arches supporting a roof.

Architectural Features
Prominent or significant parts or elements of a building or structure.

Architectural Style
The characteristic form and detail of buildings from a particular historical period or school of architecture, e.g. The Romanesque style, The Bauhaus School, The Post Modern School, the Neoclassical style, etc.

Areaway
A space within the public right of way, usually under the sidewalk adjacent to a building that affords room, access or light to a structure, often containing translucent glass elements in the sidewalk.

Articulation
The manner in which portions of a building form are expressed (materials, color, texture, pattern, modulation, etc.) and come together to define the structure.

Awning
A rooflike cover extending over or in front of a place(as over a deck or in front of a door or window) as a shelter.

Axonometric Drawing
Orthogonal projection using a 45-degree from horizontal and vertical to create a three dimensional drawing of a structure with three surfaces showing and with horizontal and vertical distances drawn to scale, but diagonal and curved lines distorted.

Belt Course
(also string course or horizontal course). A projecting horizontal band on the exterior of a building marking the separation between floors or levels.

Block Face
The row of front façades, facing the street, for the length of one block.

Bonus
In the Seattle Municipal Code this refers to the amount of additional square footage achievable by providing a public benefit feature.

Bonus Ratio
In the Seattle Municipal Code this refers to the proportional value assigned to a particular public benefit feature in a particular Downtown District. For example, the Bonus Ratio for the retail shopping public benefit feature in the DOC-1 zone is 3, such that an additional 3 feet of Gross Floor Area would be provided for every square foot of retail shopping area provided on a project.

Capital Improvement Project (CIP)
"Capital improvement project" means any on or above-grade structure including buildings and additions to buildings, bridges, viaducts, streets, arterial and highway improvements, park developments, landscaping, fencing gates, lamp standards, signs, street furniture, and all similar installations including below-grade structures which are regularly visible to the public including tunnels, arcades and underground passageways, to be erected on land belonging to the City, financed in whole or in part with City funds, or subject to the approval of the City. As defined in Ordinance 96897 Section 2, 1968, establishing the Seattle Design Commission

Chargeable Gross Floor Area
In the Seattle Municipal Code this refers to the net floor area after deducting any allowed exemptions as permitted in the Downtown District FAR provisions

Colonnade
A covered walkway flanked by rows of columns.

Compatibility
The size and character of a building element relative to other elements around it. For example, the size and proportion of windows in a building façade are usually related to one another, the spaces between them, and the scale of surrounding buildings.

Canopy
A removable fabric or plastic covering over a public walkway or sidewalk.
Context: The characteristics of the buildings, streetscape, and landscape that supports or surrounds a given building, site, or area such as predominance of period architecture or materials, wide sidewalks, or continuous and overhead weather protection, or consistent street trees.

Cornice
A molded or projecting horizontal feature that crowns a façade.

Design Guidelines
Standards of design or aesthetics that are used to guide development projects in a particular city, community, or neighborhood. Design guidelines are used by design review boards in evaluating new development projects in a particular city or neighborhood

Design Principle
1. a fundamental truth, law, doctrine, or motivating force, upon which design decisions are based. 2. an essential objective that provides a theoretical framework for design decisions.

EFIS
A generic product name standing for Expanded Foam Insulating System, which consists of an acrylic finish applied to a foam base anchored to a building façade. Brand names include Dry-vit.

Façade
Any vertical, exterior face or wall of a building, often distinguished from other faces by architectural details.

Fenestration
The arrangement and design of windows and doors on a buildings façade.

Floor Area Ratio
A measure of density expressed as a ratio of the amount of chargeable Gross Floor Area permitted/and or existing in a structure to the area of the lot on which the structure is located. Referred to as FAR.

Gable
The upper, triangular portion of a façade, usually flanked by sloping roofs.

Gateway
A principal or ceremonial point of entrance into a district, or neighborhood.

Grid
Two or more intersecting sets of regularly spaced parallel lines. It generates a pattern of regularly spaced parts, such as a street grid.

Gross Floor Area
In the Seattle Municipal Code this refers to the number of square feet of total floor area bounded by the inside face of the outside wall of the structure, measured at the floor line. Referred to as GFA.

Handbook [cf. MANUAL]
A compact reference book on some subject; manual of facts or instructions.

Historic Landmark
In Seattle, a building, object, or structure may be eligible to be listed as a historic landmark if it is more than 25 years old and the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board determines it fits one or more of the established criteria.

Isometric Drawing
Similar to axonometric drawing but using 30 and 60 degree angles to project horizontal lines of a structure.

Lintel
A horizontal beam over an opening in a wall, either structural or decorative, such as seen capping window openings.

Marquee
A shelter projecting over an entrance frequently ornamental and of metal with or without glazing.

Massing
Three dimensional bulk of a structure: height, width, and depth.

Modulation
A stepping back or projecting forward of sections of a structure’s façade within specified intervals of building width and depth, as a means of breaking up a structure’s apparent bulk.

Multidisciplinary
Of or combining the disciplines of many different branches of learning or research

Neighborhood Plan
A plan adopted by the city council and consistent with the Comprehensive Plan to guide development in a neighborhood and possibly addressing related issues such as housing, major institutions, transportation, economic development, and other community development activities

Open Space
Land and/or water area with its surface open to the sky and predominantly undeveloped, which is set aside to serve the purposes of providing active or passive recreational opportunities, conserving valuable natural resources, and structuring urban development and form.

Parapet
A low, protective wall or railing along the edge of a roof, balcony, or similar structure.

Pedestrian Orientation
The characteristics of an area wherethe location and access to buildings, types of uses permitted on the street level, and storefront design are based on the needs of persons on foot.

Pediment
A wide, low-pitched gable found in classical style buildings either at the top of façades or over window and door openings.

Podium
A low wall serving as a foundation or terrace wall; often used to refer to the base of tall buildings. In classical architecture, the mass of masonry on the flat top of which a classical temple was built.

Porte-cochere
A roof or shelter for vehicles over a driveway outside an entrance doorway, sheltering those getting in or out of a vehicle.

Presentation Drawings
Drawings prepared to communicate the design character of the structure, usually prepared in color and including realistic representations of the building in its context, showing colors of building surfaces, shadow cast and people and landscaping. (Three dimensional sketches and projected or computer drawings should be included along with two dimensional floor plans, elevations and building section drawings.)

Proportion
The balanced relationship of parts of a building, landscape, and structures to each other and to the whole.

Public Benefit Feature
In the Seattle Municipal Code this refers to amenities, uses, and other features of benefit to the public in Downtown zones, that are provided by a developer and which can qualify for an increase in floor area (the bonus). Examples include public open space, pedestrian improvements, housing, and provision of human services.

Quoin(ing)
One of the corner stones of an exterior façade when these are emphasized by size, by more formal cutting, by more conspicuous jointing or by difference in texture.

Reveal
Usually a line, scoring or joint in a wall/siding that exposes its depth and breaks up its mass.

Rhythm
Reference to the regular or harmonious recurrence of lines, shapes, forms or colors, incorporating the concept of repetition as a device to organize forms and spaces in architecture.

Right-of-way (ROW)
A strip of land, including the space above and below the surface, that is platted, dedicated, condemned, established by prescription or otherwise legally established for the use of pedestrians, vehicles, or utilities

Rustication
Masonry in which the principal face of each stone is rough, reticulated, with a margin tooled smooth along rectangular edges.

Scale
The spatial relationship among structures along a street or block front, including height, bulk, and yard relationships. proportional relationship of the size of parts to one another and to the human figure — architectural: the perceived relative height and bulk of a building relative to that of neighboring buildings — pedestrian: the perceived size of a building relative to a human being. A building is considered to have "good" pedestrian scale if there is an expression of human activity or use that indicates the building’s size

Scope
1. the range or extent of action, inquiry, etc., or of an activity, concept, etc. 2. room or opportunity for freedom of action or thought

Site context
1. the whole situation, background, or surrounding environment relevant to a particular site, project, etc. 2. having to do with historic and social infrastructures, natural and built environments

Skybridge
A temporary pedestrian enclosure connecting two structures across a public right-of-way, above street level, usually not requiring an aerial vacation

Streetscape
The visual character of a street as determined by elements such as structures, access, greenery, open space, view, etc. The scene as may be observed along a public street composed of natural and man-made components, including buildings, paving, planting, street hardware, and miscellaneous structures

Stewardship
1. the act of being a steward, as in management of household accounts, etc. 2. supervision or administration, as of finances and property, for another or others sustainable design a holistic approach to the design of buildings and landscapes that minimizes ecological impacts to the environment while balancing economic, social, and environmental factors

Scale, Human
Used to describe the quality of a building that includes structural or architectural components of size and proportions that relate to the human form and/or that exhibits through its structural or achitectural components the human functions contained within.

Setback
The required or actual placement of a building a specified distance away from a road, property line, or other structure.

Site Plan
A detailed plan showing the proposed placement of structures, parking areas, open space, landscaping, and other development features, on a parcel of land.

Spandrel
In skeleton-frame buildings, the panel of wall between adjacent structural columns and between windowsills and the window head next below it.

Spandrel Beam
A beam designed to support the window or windows and wall of a story height between neighboring columns.

Spandrel Glass
A spandrel faced or consisting of glass, usually opaque and/or colored.

Transom
A small, often hinged, window or multi-paned window opening above a door or another window, usually capping the street-level of a commercial building.

Transparency
A street level development standard that defines a requirement for clear or lightly tinted glass in terms of a percentage of the façade area between an area falling within 2' and 8' above the adjacent sidewalk or walkway.

Upper Level Coverage Limit Area
In certain Downtown zones, a standard limiting the percentage of lot coverage of a building above a certain height, the specific provisions of which may depend on site size, height above street-level and number of street frontages.  Urban design amenities elements of a project that provide clear public benefit and enhance the pedestrian experience within the pubic realm adjacent to the project

Urban Form
The spatial arrangement of a particular environment, as defined by the connectivity of built mass and form, the natural environment, and the movement of persons, goods and information within.

Vacation
An action taken by the Council which terminates or extinguishes a right-of-way easement when it is no longer necessary for a public right-of-way (a street, alley, or aerial vacation)

Vision
1. a mental image; an imaginative contemplation (to have visions of power) 2. a) mode of seeing or conceiving (a project made possible by one person’s vision) b) force or power of imagination (a statesman of great vision)