A water table is a masonry architectural feature that consists of a projecting course that deflects water running down the face of a building away from lower courses or the foundation. A water table may be found near the base of a wall or at a transition between materials, such as from stone to brick.
WATER TABLE: A projection of lower masonry on the outside of the wall slightly above the ground. Often a damp course is placed at the level of the water table to prevent upward penetration of ground water. Technical Notes 2 - Glossary of Terms Relating to Brick Masonry www.bia.org
Note the water table around the base of the Arthur Heurtley House (illustration provided in that article) designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1902.
Famous quotes containing the words water and/or table:
“Why are a lady’s thighs always cool? That is, said the monk, due to three causes for which a place is always naturally cool: primo, because water runs all the way down it; secondo, because it is in a shady, dark and obscure place, where the sun never shines; and thirdly, because it is continually fanned by the winds from the breezy hole.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)
“The salt person and blasted place
I furnish with the meat of a fable;
If the dead starve, their stomachs turn to tumble
An upright man in the antipodes
Or spray-based and rock-chested sea:
Over the past table I repeat this present grace.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)