Building

In architecture, construction, engineering, real estate development and technology the word building may refer to one of the following:

  1. Any human-made structure used or intended for supporting or sheltering any use or continuous occupancy, or
  2. An act of construction (i. e. the activity of building, see also builder)

In this article, the first usage is generally intended unless otherwise specified.

Buildings come in a wide amount of shapes and functions, and have been adapted throughout history for a wide number of factors, from building materials available, to weather conditions, to land prices, ground conditions, specific uses and aesthetic reasons.

Buildings serve several needs of society – primarily as shelter from weather and as general living space, to provide privacy, to store belongings and to comfortably live and work. A building as a shelter represents a physical division of the human habitat (a place of comfort and safety) and the outside (a place that at times may be harsh and harmful).

Ever since the first cave paintings, buildings have also become objects or canvasess of artistic expression. In recent years, interest in sustainable planning and building practices has also become part of the design process of many new buildings.

Read more about Building:  Definitions, History, Creation, Building Damage

Famous quotes containing the word building:

    Culture is a sham if it is only a sort of Gothic front put on an iron building—like Tower Bridge—or a classical front put on a steel frame—like the Daily Telegraph building in Fleet Street. Culture, if it is to be a real thing and a holy thing, must be the product of what we actually do for a living—not something added, like sugar on a pill.
    Eric Gill (1882–1940)

    History is a child building a sand-castle by the sea, and that child is the whole majesty of man’s power in the world.
    Heraclitus (c. 535–475 B.C.)

    An island always pleases my imagination, even the smallest, as a small continent and integral portion of the globe. I have a fancy for building my hut on one. Even a bare, grassy isle, which I can see entirely over at a glance, has some undefined and mysterious charm for me.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)