Alban Janson & Florian Tigges 
Fundamental Concepts of Architecture [PDF ebook] 
The Vocabulary of Spatial Situations

Architecture is an experience – with the intellect and with all our senses, in motion, and in use. But in order to actually discuss and assess it with relevance, a clarification of terms is essential in order to avoid the vagueness that often prevails when talking about architecture.
This dictionary provides a vocabulary that allows the architecture discourse to go beyond the declaration of constructive relationships or the description of architectonic forms in familiar terms like “roof, ” “base, ” “wall, ” and “axis” or “proportion”. The point is to describe the experience of architecture: how exactly does it contribute to the experience of a situation? For instance, the staging of an entrance situation, or the layout and visitor routes through a museum.
From “context, ” through “guidance, ” “readability, ” “patina, ” “spatial structure, ” “symmetry” and “tectonics, ” to “width” (and “narrowness”) or “window, ” the most important terms in architectural language are explained precisely and in detail.