A to Z of building your own home...Q

QuoinsQuoins are masonry blocks interlocking 2 walls set at 90 degrees. They exist, in most cases to provide actual strength for a wall, (load-bearing) made with inferior stone or rubble. In other cases, they appear to make a feature on the particular part of the wall and therefore making an impression and reinforcing the onlookers sense of structural presence. Architects may tend to use it both ways, however, to create an effect they would tend to use it for the sole purpose for it to look right.They are predominantly used on stone or brick buildings. Brick quoins will appear on brick buildings that may extrude from the facing brickwork in such a way as to give the appearance of a uniformly cut block of stone larger than the bricks. Where Quoins are used for decoration and not for load bearing, they may be made from a wider variety of materials beyond brick, stone, concrete and extending to timber, cement render or stucco.In a traditional, often decorative use, large cuboid ashlar stone blocks or replicas are only used on the corners with their longest sides horizontally: the longest sides are laid to be on one wall plane then the other that the corner forms. This forms a long side, short-side alternate pattern, which by using the same size blocks alternates when the viewer passes the corner. QuadrangleIs a rectangular open space either completely or partially enclosed by buildings of an academic or civic character. Most of the time, the grounds of a quadrangle are often grassed or landscaped. Such a quadrangular area is intended as an environment for contemplation, study or relaxation.The most well known quadrangles, extensively imitated in university and college architecture are those in Oxford and Cambridge. In Oxford, the buildings that are connected called ( New College, Oxford) which were built in 1380, are connected to form a unified mass.  This layout was enormously influential in subsequent collegiate buildings. Even now, this layout has been majorly influential in subsequent buildings built around the Oxford University campus. In Cambridge, one of the most well known quadrangles is that of Gonville and Caius, which begun in 1565, built by John Caius party to display the new renaissance architecture he had seen while travelling through Italy.