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Home Design Glossary
Adobe: The traditional building material of southwest-style houses, adobes are large rectangular bricks made of mud and straw. Once a cheap material, adobes are now expensive because of the labor involved – most “adobe” style homes are no longer made with adobe.
Alacena: A cupboard dug into an interior adobe wall. See nicho.
Banco:
A plastered adobe bench built
into the base of a wall. Many
traditional-style homes have bancos,
either built near the kiva fireplace,
in a sitting room or outside on
a verandah or a portal.
Canale: A drain spout leading from the flat-roofs of adobe homes to allow rain water to flow off the roof and protect walls from falling water.
Casita: Literally “small house,” a casita is generally used to refer to a guest house behind the main dwelling.
Corbel:
A wood support
that distributes
weight of roof
beams, often
decoratively
carved.
Coyote Fence: A fence formed by wiring the large branches or saplings together, generally made with aspen or cedar.
Entrada: An entryway between rooms.
Hacienda: Traditional Spanish house built in a half-circle design around a central Plaza.
 Horno:
A rounded
outdoor oven
used for cooking
and baking.
 Kiva Fireplace:
A rounded, plastered adobe
fireplace with a narrow
opening built in the corner
of a room. Logs are stacked
upright inside.
Latillas: Juniper sapling branches arranged above Vigas to form the ceiling in an adobe home. (See Vigas.)
Lintel: An exposed beam above a window or a door – often carved with decorative designs.
 Nicho:
A sculpted indentation
in an adobe wall, used as
a shelf, and often housing
small religious
shrines.
Northern New Mexico-style: Pueblo-style house with a pitched tin roof.
Placita: An inner courtyard in the back of a house.
Plaza: A city center, square, or public market.
Portal:
A porch or covered
patio with a roof
supported by vigas
projecting from
the houses.
Pueblo: A village or small town. In northern New Mexico, pueblo is used to refer to the villages of the Native Americans.
Pueblo-style: The classic Santa Fe home, Pueblo-style houses feature flat-roofs with protruding vigas and canales, along with earth-tone colored walls formed by adobe bricks. Today, many Pueblo-style homes are wood-frame rather than adobe, and can be two or three story while the originals were almost all single story houses.
Territorial-style: A Pueblo-style home modified with sharp-cornered walls, brick coping around the roofline, and milled woodwork details such as pedimented
lintels on windows frames.
 Vigas:
Large exposed wooden
ceiling beams that hold
up the roof in an
adobe home.
This information is courtesy of City Different Realty.
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