Glossary · H
Haunch
Also called haunches
The part of an arch roughly midway between springing and crown, where a thin ring tends to crack and where builders heap filling to steady it.
See also: Thrust
Rules that use the word
The flying buttress. Carry the outward thrust of a high vault across the aisle roof by a half-arch of stone (the flyer) that leans against the clerestory wall at the level of the vault’s haunches and springs from a massive buttress pier outside the aisle, which takes the thrust down to the ground.
Thick and heavy below, thin and light above. Build a great concrete dome thickest and heaviest at its haunches and thinnest and lightest toward the crown, grading the aggregate from dense stone at the base to light volcanic pumice at the top.
Where it appears in the book
In the chapters The Arch, Domes, Frame and Skin, Romanesque and Gothic.
Nearby in the glossary
Hara · Haram · Harmika · Harmonic mean · Header · Hearth · Hearting · Helix