Wall in the context of Barbed wire

A building or edifice is an enclosed structure with a roof, walls and often windows, usually standing permanently in one place, such as a house or factory. Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and functions, and have been adapted throughout history for numerous factors, from building materials available, to weather conditions, land prices, ground conditions, specific uses, prestige, and aesthetic reasons. To better understand the concept, see Nonbuilding structure for contrast.

Buildings serve several societal needs – occupancy, primarily as shelter from weather, security, living space, privacy, to store belongings, and to comfortably live and work. A building as a shelter represents a physical separation of the human habitat (a place of comfort and safety) from the outside (a place that may be harsh and harmful at times).

A wall panel is single piece of material, usually flat and cut into a rectangular shape, that serves as the visible and exposed covering for a wall. Wall panels are functional as well as decorative, providing insulation and soundproofing, combined with uniformity of appearance, along with some measure of durability or ease of replaceability. While there is no set size limit for a piece of material fulfilling these functions, the maximum practical size for wall panels has been suggested to be about 0.6 to 2.4 m (2 to 8 ft), to allow for transportation.

A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent material, a sash set in a frame in the opening; the sash and frame are also referred to as a window. Many glazed windows may be opened, to allow ventilation, or closed to exclude inclement weather. Windows may have a latch or similar mechanism to lock the window shut or to hold it open by various amounts.

Types include the eyebrow window, fixed windows, hexagonal windows, single-hung, and double-hung sash windows, horizontal sliding sash windows, casement windows, awning windows, hopper windows, tilt, and slide windows (often door-sized), tilt and turn windows, transom windows, sidelight windows, jalousie or louvered windows, clerestory windows, lancet windows, skylights, roof windows, roof lanterns, bay windows, oriel windows, thermal, or Diocletian, windows, picture windows, rose windows, emergency exit windows, stained glass windows, French windows, panel windows, double/triple-paned windows, and witch windows.

In fortification architecture, a rampart is a length of embankment or wall forming part of the defensive boundary of a castle, hillfort, settlement or other fortified site. It is usually broad-topped and made of excavated earth and/or masonry.

A door is a hinged or otherwise movable barrier that allows ingress (entry) into and egress (exit) from an enclosure. The created opening in the wall is a doorway or portal. A door's essential and primary purpose is to provide security by controlling access to the doorway (portal). Conventionally, it is a panel that fits into the doorway of a building, room, or vehicle. Doors are generally made of a material suited to the door's task. They are commonly attached by hinges, but can move by other means, such as slides or counterbalancing.

The door may be able to move in various ways (at angles away from the doorway/portal, by sliding on a plane parallel to the frame, by folding in angles on a parallel plane, or by spinning along an axis at the center of the frame) to allow or prevent ingress or egress. In most cases, a door's interior matches its exterior side. But in other cases (e.g., a vehicle door) the two sides are radically different.

A shelf (pl.: shelves) is a flat, horizontal or sloping plane used for items that are displayed or stored in a home, business, store, or elsewhere. It is raised off the floor and often anchored to a wall, supported on its shorter length sides by brackets, or otherwise anchored to cabinetry by brackets, dowels, screws, or nails. It can also be held up by columns or pillars. A shelf is also known as a counter, ledge, mantel, or rack. Tables designed to be placed against a wall, possibly mounted, are known as console tables, and are similar to individual shelves.

A pen is a fenced/walled open-air enclosure for holding land animals in captivity, typically for livestock but may also be used for holding other domesticated animals such as pets that are unwanted inside buildings. The term describes types of enclosures that may confine one or many animals. Construction and terminology vary depending on the region of the world, purpose, animal species to be confined, local materials used and tradition. Pen or penning as a verb refers to the act of confining animals in an enclosure.

Similar terms are kraal, boma, and corrals. Encyclopædia Britannica notes usage of the term "kraal" for elephant corrals in India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

In archaeological excavation, a feature is a collection of one or more contexts representing some human non-portable activity, such as a hearth or wall. Features serve as an indication that the area in which they are found has been interfered with in the past, usually by humans.

Features are distinguished from artifacts in that they cannot be separated from their location without changing their form. Artifacts are portable, while features are non-portable. Artifacts and features can both be made from any available material, with the primary distinction being portability.

A gate or gateway is a point of entry to or from a space enclosed by walls. The word is derived from Proto-Germanic *gatan, meaning an opening or passageway. Gates may be designed for decorative or functional purposes, and they vary widely in style depending on architectural trends and material choices.

Synonyms include yett (which comes from the same root word) and portal. The concept originally referred to the gap or hole in the wall or fence, rather than a barrier which closed it. Gates may prevent or control the entry or exit of individuals, or they may be merely decorative. The moving part or parts of a gateway may be considered "doors", as they are fixed at one side whilst opening and closing like one.

Coping (from cope, Latin capa) is the capping or covering of a wall. A splayed or wedge coping is one that slopes in a single direction; a saddle coping slopes to either side of a central high point.

Coping may be made of stone, brick, clay or terracotta, concrete or cast stone, tile, slate, wood, thatch, or various metals, including aluminum, copper, stainless steel, steel, and zinc. Stone coping used in contemporary landscaping is sometimes referred to as a "wall cap" in the US, with the stones referred to as capstones. In the UK coping is distinct from capping in that the former has an overhang with a drip groove, whereas the latter is flush with the face of the wall below. In all cases it should have a weathered (slanted or curved) top surface to throw off the water.

Wall studs are framing components in timber or steel-framed walls, that run between the top and bottom plates. It is a fundamental element in frame building. The majority of non-masonry buildings rely on wall studs, with wood being the most common and least-expensive material used for studs. Studs are positioned perpendicular to the wall they’re forming to give strength and create space for wires, pipes and insulation. Studs are sandwiched between two horizontal boards called top and bottom plates. These boards are nailed or screwed to the top and bottom ends of the studs, forming the complete wall frame. Studs are usually spaced 16 in. or 24 in. apart.

Glazing, which derives from the Middle English for 'glass', is a part of a wall or window, made of glass. Glazing also describes the work done by a professional "glazier". Glazing is also less commonly used to describe the insertion of ophthalmic lenses into an eyeglass frame.

Common types of glazing that are used in architectural applications include clear and tinted float glass, tempered glass, and laminated glass as well as a variety of coated glasses, all of which can be glazed singly or as double, or even triple, glazing units. Ordinary clear glass has a slight green tinge, but special colorless glasses are offered by several manufacturers.

A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room. A bow window is a form of bay with a curve rather than angular facets; an oriel window is a bay window that does not touch the ground.

A window may be all three: projecting outward from the main fascia of a wall, curved in shape, and not reaching the ground. A bay window may be supported from the ground by a foundation, or in space by corbels, brackets, or cantilever.

Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called courses are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall.

Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by size. For example, in the UK a brick is defined as a unit having dimensions less than 337.5 mm × 225 mm × 112.5 mm (13.3 in × 8.9 in × 4.4 in) and a block is defined as a unit having one or more dimensions greater than the largest possible brick.

A load-bearing wall or bearing wall is a wall that is an active structural element of a building, which holds the weight of the elements above it, by conducting its weight to a foundation structure below it.

Load-bearing walls are one of the earliest forms of construction. The development of the flying buttress in Gothic architecture allowed structures to maintain an open interior space, transferring more weight to the buttresses instead of to central bearing walls. In housing, load-bearing walls are most common in the light construction method known as "platform framing". In the birth of the skyscraper era, the concurrent rise of steel as a more suitable framing system first designed by William Le Baron Jenney, and the limitations of load-bearing construction in large buildings, led to a decline in the use of load-bearing walls in large-scale commercial structures.

A setback or step-back is a step-like form of a wall or other building frontage, also termed a recession or recessed story. Step-backs lower the building's center of mass, making it more stable. A setback as a minimum one-bay indent across all stories is called a recessed bay or recess and is the more common exterior form of an alcove.

Upper stories forming a step-back may form a belvedere – and in residential use are considered the penthouse. If part of the roof, then they are a loft or attic/garret.