ABSTRACT
The final chapter on enclosure brings the book to a conclusion by considering the most important formal aspect of a building—how it looks. The formal dimensions of enclosure are subdivided into a discussion of elevations, façades, envelopes, and skins. The façade acts like a face that conveys a building’s emotive content. As a function of orthographic projection, elevation stems from elevare and implies the action of lifting up or elevating the building’s vertical planes, or walls, from its horizontal planes, or floors. While skin suggests a performative enclosure, it also acts as a formal element. Stemming from the Latin pellis, meaning skin, the word pellicular has evolved to encompass such concepts as leather, parchment, hide, film, scum, layer, and membrane that may be applied to analyzing a building’s enclosure. Just as a paper envelope wraps and seals a letter inside, a building’s envelope acts as the separator between its interior and exterior that wraps around the entire structure, from foundations to roof.
