Eichler & mid-century homes
Mid-century glossary
The words you'll hear touring Eichlers and other mid-century homes, from post-and-beam to single-story overlays.
- Atrium
- An open-air courtyard at the center of the house, entered before the living space; introduced in Eichlers in the late 1950s.
- Bay Region Style
- The Bay Area's regional modernism of wood, landscape, and informality.
- Philippine mahogany
- Also called lauan; the wood used for original Eichler interior paneling.
- Post-and-beam
- A structure of vertical posts and horizontal beams that carries the roof, so walls don't bear weight and can be glass.
- Radiant heat
- Heating from warm-water pipes cast into the concrete floor slab.
- Single-story overlay
- A zoning layer that bars second-story additions in a neighborhood.
- Slab-on-grade
- A concrete floor poured directly on the ground, with no crawl space.
- Spray foam roof
- A polyurethane foam layer sprayed onto a low-slope roof that insulates and waterproofs.
- Tract
- A subdivision built at one time by one builder, often with a handful of repeated models.
- Usonian
- Frank Lloyd Wright's term for his modest, affordable American homes, like the Hanna House.