FAQ: Architecture Without the Jargon

A pavilion is a lightweight, free-standing or semi-open structure set inside a larger landscape, plaza or exhibition ground. Unlike an office building or apartment tower divided into dozens of locked rooms, a pavilion usually consists of a single unified canopy or shell where shelter, views and free pedestrian movement come first.

Porosity simply measures how easily air, daylight and people can pass through a building at street level. A porous museum or civic centre has multiple entrances, shaded through-passages and open courtyards so you can walk across the site on your daily commute without walking around a long blank wall.

First, wood is much lighter than concrete, which means it generates far less destructive inertia when the ground shakes during an earthquake. Second, for fire safety, modern codes allow thick engineered wood (such as Cross-Laminated Timber or glulam beams) that chars slowly on the outside at a predictable rate while keeping a strong unburned core, or hybrid designs where non-structural timber louvers wrap around a fireproof steel-and-concrete core.

In traditional Japanese architecture, the engawa is a strip of wooden flooring that runs along the outside perimeter of a room beneath a wide roof overhang. It is neither fully inside nor fully outside. Contemporary architects use modern engawa zones around libraries and cultural halls so visitors can sit out of the rain while watching street life.

A jaali is a perforated screen made of carved stone, terracotta tiles or staggered brickwork. It cools spaces in three ways: it blocks direct solar radiation from hitting the floor inside, it allows continuous cross-breezes to flow through the building, and as warm air squeezes through the small openings, it speeds up slightly and drops in perceived temperature.

Well-engineered skyrise greenery in Singapore avoids stagnant water—the breeding ground for Aedes mosquitoes—by using sloped free-draining soil trays and automated drip irrigation fed by harvested rainwater routed from rooftop collection tanks. National Parks Board inspectors also mandate accessible maintenance catwalks behind the planters.

When wet liquid concrete is poured between two wooden formwork walls, it exerts enormous outward pressure. Steel tie-rods called "form ties" hold the two wooden panels together at regular intervals while the concrete hardens. Once the wood is removed, the plastic cones at the ends of those rods are pulled out, and the tidy circular recesses are plugged with mortar.

An explanatory diagram simplifies a building to show a single concept—such as how wind flows under a roof or how pedestrians cross a plaza—without strict geometric scale. A measured drawing represents proportional architectural dimensions (such as a 1:50 cross-section or a 60 mm timber joint) so you can compare actual structural thicknesses.

They used to be, which is why contemporary Asian commissions increasingly require "design for disassembly." By using bolted steel shoes, dry-jointed timber, leased scaffolding or biodegradable earth and bamboo panels rather than poured concrete and glue, an exhibition pavilion can be unbolted after an event and reassembled as a permanent community shelter or school roof elsewhere.

Look at the seating. If the only places to sit down require buying a five-dollar coffee, or if security guards ask people resting on steps to move along, it is a commercial space. A genuinely civic landmark provides un-policed benches, shade, step-free ramps and public sightlines where anyone can linger for an hour without opening their wallet.