Glossary

Some of the terminology used in this study may be new or unfamiliar to the reader, and some of it consists of terms used in a technical fashion. The following glossary is intended as a guide to these usages. Terms are indexed to the text by page numbers to their first occurrence and in some cases to text explanations and definitions. In the text, the first occurrence of a special term is noted by a superscript letter (thus, aesthetic^a).

AESTHETIC (64): see FUNCTION.

ARCHITECTONIC (1): pertaining to the formative organization of built environments (inclusive of architectural formations as well as formations appropriated semiotically (qv) from given natural landscapes).

ARCHITECTONICS (3): the systematic study and analysis of architectonic formations.

ARTIFACTUAL (1, 5): pertaining to objects or formations made by human means (in contrast to formations designated or appropriated from a given landscape).

BUILT ENVIRONMENT (1): the ordered array of architectonic formations in a given environmental setting, both artifactual and appropriated.

CELL (38): see SPACE-CELL.

CHANNEL (5): sensory channel (e.g., vision, audition, olfaction); see MODALITY.

CODE (1): the system (qv) of ordered relationships and rules governing the relationships among significant formations.

COMMUNICATIVE EVENT (3): the totality of formations in the transmission of a message, involving units drawn from a variety of media, addressed to several sensory channels simultaneously: see MULTIMODAL.

COMPOSITION (76, 78): an ordered relationship among formations.

CONJUNCTION (83): an additive relationship among formations.

CONTEXTUAL VARIATION (43): differential manifestations of the same formation in contrastive situations or contexts of other formations: see RELATIONAL INVARIANCE.

CORRELATIVITY (68, 69): relationships which are similar in a systemic sense (qv) in different systems or codes.

DISJUNCTION (83): alternative realization or manifestation; an either-or relationship.

EMOTIVE (67): see FUNCTION.

EXPRESSIVE (67): see FUNCTION.

FORM (46): a subcellular unit in a geometric framework which is primarily significant in discriminating cellular units.

FORMAL STRUCTURE (62): the geometric, perspectival and topological set of organizational rules in a code; contrast material structure (qv).

FEATURES (50): the simultaneous set of spatial properties which serve to define subcellular units such as forms.

FUNCTION (63): the relationships among various components of a transmission; differently dominant orientations on these components prescribe contrastive functions (aesthetic, emotive, expressive, referential, meta-architectonic, territorial or phatic). See detailed explication, Chapter IV.

ICONIC (71): a relationship among signs wherein a formation purports to resemble its referent in varying degrees, from representational to diagrammatic.

INDEXICAL (71): a relationship among signs wherein a formation conjures up its referent via immediate contiguity.

INFRASTRUCTURE (5): the set of formations which subdivide a space-cell, such as furniture, etc., of a static or movable nature.

MATRIX (39): a sign formation comprising a diagram of syntactic relationship among space-cells; the pattern of aggregation of cells.

MATERIAL STRUCTURE (62): the set of organizational rules defining the composition of physical entities employed in the realization of architectonic sign-formations.

META-ARCHITECTONIC (65): see FUNCTION.

MODALITY (6): a code or system addressed to a given sensory channel.

MODULARITY (78): a set of ordered rules defining the patterned size-relationships of material composition.

MULTIFUNCTIONALITY (4, 63): a property of architectonic sign-formations wherein each transmission reveals the copresence of various functions (qv).

MULTIMODALITY (3): a property of communicative events (qv) wherein the totality of the message is addressed simultaneously to several sensory channels and different semiotic codes.

PHATIC (65): see TERRITORIALITY: FUNCTION.

PLANES (52): a subcellular systemic unit in a two-dimensional space frame whose significance involves a portion of the definition and discrimination of cells.

POLYSEMOUS (66): multiply-meaningful.

PRESCRIPTIVE (4): pertaining to theory in applied architectonics (architectural practice), in contrast to descriptive theory, having to do with the analysis of architectonic systems per se.

REFERENTIALITY (64): a functional orientation upon the contextual associations or usages of a formation (see FUNCTION).

RELATIONAL INVARIANCE (2): invariance or constancy across sets of different realizations of formation.

SEMATECTONIC (43, 63): pertaining to direct signification of any architectonic formation; applies to systemic as well as directly-meaningful units or formations in a code.

SEMIOTIC (1): pertaining to significance or meaningfulness of sign-formations in any kind of communicative system. A code is a semiotic system or system of signs.

SEMIOTIC CONSTRAINT (47): sets of rules proscribing the conventional occurrence of certain sign-formations; regulations on what a corpus of formations considers as non-proper in some sense.

SENSE-DETERMINATIVE (50): pertaining to forms and features which have direct (as well as systemic) significance, to be contrasted with sense-discriminative or systemic meaningfulness.

SIGN (2): a combination of a formation or that-which-signifies and a referent, or that-which-is-signified. I.e., both a formation and its conceptual association(s).

SIGNANS (70): the formative component of a sign: that which signifies.

SIGNATUM (70): the associative component of a sign: that which is signified.

SIGN SYSTEM (3): see CODE.

SINGULARITY OF DENOTATION (50): sense-determinative meaning (qv).

SOMATOTOPY (6, 49): significant spatial behavior wherein formations created by differential orientations and movements of body-parts are incorporated into systems or codes of somatic signs. cf. kinesics, proxemics, body language, etc.

SPACE-CELL (38): the primary significant unit in an architectonic code, comprising an alterna pattern of mass and space components (forms, planes). Includes both enclosed spaces and objects plus their surrounds.

SPACE-MANIFOLD (50): a spatial framework, of three types in an architectonic system—geometric, perspectival and topological.

STRING (60): a network of connections among space-cells; the geometric pattern of matrices.

SYMBOLIC (71): a relationship among signs wherein the formation is tied to its associated referent in a conventional and arbitrary fashion (i.e., without iconicity or indexicality.

SYSTEM (1): see CODE.

SYSTEMATICITY (4): the orderliness of a code; its internal organization.

SYSTEMIC (2): pertaining to the structure and organization of a code and its component unities. Thus, subcellular units are significant in a systemic way primarily, in contrast to cellular units, which carry direct extra-systemic associations.

TERRITORIALITY (65): see FUNCTION.

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The following symbols are employed in the text on a couple of occasions as a graphic shorthand:

> (40) = “greater than” (>> = very much greater than)

< (40) = “lesser than” (<< = very much lesser than)

   (80) = (c = a and b)

   (80) = (c = a or b)