ARCHITECTURE

Adobe & Adobes:
Adobe is mud or wet clay that is used to cover building infrastructure, or bricks which were historically made of adobe. Adobe as an architectural style refers to originating from the earth-it is simply earth and can return to the earth Rammed adobe is a method of building that creates a frame for the structure, permitting adobe to be stuffed in lieu of bricks.

Vigas:
Beams made typically of pine that has been stripped of bark but not milled. These round logs are placed at even intervals, usually spanning the shortest room dimension. Often they extend beyond the exterior walls, providing aesthetic qualities to the exterior of the house and sometimes providing support for shading materials, which are laid on top.

Nicho:
A recessed area in a wall used to hold lamps, candles, religious statues, and other ornamentation.

Portals:
This covered porch, often running the entire length of the building or between two wings, is supported by vertical posts, often topped with corbels or zapatas. Vigas or milled beams provide the top structure, extending from the side walls of the main structure. In historical times, the top of the portal was finished like the roof of a room or covered with cut branches, easily removed in the winter to allow more sun to be absorbed by the building's walls.

Canales:
This drain spout carries water from the building.

Corbel:
A carved, and sometimes painted wooden bracket used under ceiling beams or vigas,. A double corbel bracket, sometimes called a zapata, is typically placed atop the log posts of portals.

Fireplaces:

Kiva:
This term is most appropriately used to define a Native American place of worship and ceremony. In this structure, fires were in pits under the smoke hole in the ceiling. However, in more modern times the term kiva is used to define a certain type of fireplace. This fireplace, introduced during Spanish Colonial time, is found in the corner of the room and is bee hive in shape, almost as an extension of the adobe walls. Typically, a kiva has a low hearth rising 6" - 10" from the floor. The flue is round or square, sometimes with a smoke shelf but in Spanish colonial time, there was no damper. In many cases, due to the shape and limited depth of the firebox, wood is stacked vertically against the back corner of the firebox. There is no applied mantel but one that is integral to the adobe which creates the exterior of the kiva.

Latillas (also spelled latias):
Small wood pieces, milled or not, cut to fit between vigas or beams. If placed at a 45-degree angle to the vigas or beams, a herringbone effect is created. This architectural detail which enhances the appearance of the ceiling was historically installed to help prevent dirt from shifting down from the thick dirt roof. This was achieved by placing layers of thatch-like grass above the latillas and below the layer of earth that created the roof.

Paredcito:
When a kiva-type fireplace is to be placed in the middle of the room and not in a corner, a low wall, or paredcita, is built out from the wall of the building and the fireplace, is then placed in this faux corner of the room. In New Mexico, this is sometimes referred to incorrectly as a padrecito, or little father fireplace.

Ramada:
Like a portal, this structure provides shelter from the elements and is built of posts and beams, and though the top has openings to the sky, it is often covered to provide storage. Unlike a portal, a ramada is detached from and set apart from the house.

New Mexican Architectural Styles

Pueblo: This Spanish word for town has a more complex meaning in New Mexico architecture. A Pueblo is an energy efficient system of maximizing building shape, orientation and materials.

Hacienda: A building structure made of connected rooms that create a central miniature plaza, or plazuela.

Placita: This is a small patio-like area formed by two or more walls of the home.

Revival Styles of Northern New Mexico

Territorial Style: The mid-1800s brought a combination of traditional flat-roofed adobe construction with provincial Greek Revival details such as white porch posts with capitals, moldings, triangular pedimented lintels over doors and windows, and fired brick cornices capping walls. Introduced along with this style were glass windows, milled lumber, fired brick, the central-hallway house plan, and pitched roofs. Usually the structure was adobe walls with a few fired brick details

Pueblo Spanish Revival style: About 1905, builders began to revive the flat-roofed, stuccoed cubic forms of the Pueblo and Spanish Colonial traditions. Sometimes called the Pueblo Revival, the style draws terraced, multi-story forms from Pueblo villages, and portales, corbels, corner fireplaces, and mission towers from the Spanish Colonial architecture of the state. Therefore, this is more accurately called the Pueblo Spanish Revival.

Territorial Revival style: Beginning in the early 1930s, architects revived the territorial era vocabulary of flat-roofed, stuccoed forms with white, classical details and red brick cornices atop walls. Used primarily in house design and at the state capitol complex, the revival omits the pitched roofs that were part of the mid-1800s territorial style.