A building typology in Hektar sits between two other scales. Below it are the type plan typologies, which describe a single floor with its units and circulation. Above it are the parcel typologies, which describe how multiple buildings sit together on a parcel.
The building typology is the layer that defines the shape and behaviour of a single building. It carries its own logic for how units are distributed, how circulation works, and how the building fits onto a parcel. For an overview of how all the scales connect, see Architectural Scales.
A building typology in Hektar is described along two related dimensions. One is its volume, which is how the building reads at the parcel scale. The other is its internal organization, which is how units and circulation cores are arranged inside.
Both dimensions matter, and they constrain each other. A long thin volume cannot use a point-house core. A compact volume cannot host a long corridor. The volume and the internal organization have to fit together for the building to work.
At the parcel scale, building volumes are classified by their shape, primarily by how many bends they have and how they relate to the parcel boundary. A straight volume reads differently on a parcel than a bent one, and a fully enclosing volume reads differently again. Each shape opens onto the parcel in a different way, defining where courtyards form, where facades face the street, and where outdoor space ends up.
Hektar features five base volume typologies, ranging from a compact standalone volume up to a fully enclosed quarter.
A compact standalone volume with no bends. Smaller in footprint than the elongated typologies, and often taller relative to its base. Point buildings work well as standalone towers, as corner accents on a parcel, or as endpoints that anchor longer volumes. They tend to leave more of the parcel open around them, which can be a strength when daylight or sightlines through the site matter.
A straight rectangular volume with no bends. The most flexible typology to combine with others. Lamellas can sit parallel to each other to form parcel layouts with linear courtyards between them, or stand alone along a street edge. The lamella is the workhorse of multi-family residential and is often the starting point for parcel layouts that need to be tested in many configurations.
A volume with one bend, forming an L. The L opens onto two parcel sides while enclosing a corner. This shape is useful when the parcel geometry has a strong corner condition, or when half of a courtyard needs to be defined by a single building. Two Ls can combine to form a partial courtyard with two open sides.
A volume with two bends, forming a U. The U encloses three sides of a courtyard while opening to the fourth. This is a strongly enclosing typology and is well suited to sites where a defined inner courtyard is the priority, while still maintaining one open edge toward the street or another orientation.
A fully enclosed O-shape with four bends, forming a complete perimeter around an inner courtyard. The Quarter is the most enclosing of the volume typologies and is the natural form for the traditional European urban block. It defines a clear public face on all sides of the parcel and a fully protected inner courtyard at its centre. Quarter buildings depend heavily on the inner courtyard for daylight to the inward-facing units, which makes solar conditions and sky exposure particularly important to evaluate.
The choice between Point, Lamella, L, U, and Quarter is not just aesthetic. It changes how the building relates to neighbours, how much courtyard area it encloses, and how it responds to solar conditions and sky exposure on the parcel.
Inside any of these volumes, units are organized around circulation cores. The way the units relate to the core defines the block plan typology. This is the next scale of architectural decision, sitting between volume and unit.
Hektar supports four access types, each producing a different relationship between core and units.
A central corridor runs through the building with units on both sides. Efficient for unit count per floor, common in apartment buildings, and works well for longer volumes where the corridor length can be amortized across many units.
A single external walkway, the gallery, runs along one side of the building. Units are accessed from this walkway. The gallery typology is well suited to climates and conditions where outdoor circulation is acceptable, and it tends to produce a recognizable architectural expression on the gallery facade.
The core sits in the middle of a compact footprint, with units arranged around it. Each floor typically has a small number of units, often two to four. Point houses work well at the corners of parcels or as standalone buildings, and pair naturally with the Point volume typology and with the endpoints of L and U volumes.
A variation where the staircase is integrated into the building facade rather than a central core. This typology trades some interior flexibility for a different facade expression and is often used in lower-rise residential buildings where each staircase serves a small cluster of units.
The volume typology and the block plan typology are not chosen independently. A Lamella volume can host a corridor, gallery, point house, or staircase-in-facade arrangement. An L-shape often works best with a point house at the bend and a different organization along each leg. A U-shape introduces additional constraints because of the inside corner conditions. A Quarter, with its fully enclosed perimeter, has its own logic for how circulation distributes around the four legs.
Hektar handles these interactions automatically during generation. When the algorithm selects a building configuration for a parcel, it picks compatible combinations of volume and block plan. The user sees the result. The compatibility logic happens underneath.
The reason Hektar separates volume from block plan is that they are decided at different points in the design process and by different concerns. Volume responds to the parcel and the urban scale. Block plan responds to the unit mix, circulation efficiency, and architectural quality.
Separating them means a user can hold one fixed while exploring the other. You can test what happens if every building on a parcel becomes a Quarter, regardless of internal organization. Or you can hold the volumes constant and test what happens if all internal organization switches from corridor to gallery. This kind of structured exploration is what makes typology analysis a useful early-stage activity rather than a guessing game.
To see how these building typologies combine on a parcel, see Parcel Typologies. To see what happens inside a single floor, see Type Plan Typologies.
