Construct · 2 fields · 4 citations

Where does skin collide?

One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.

● jingle · one word, two constructs Nearest construct by meaningparenchymacompare the meanings
How to read this

Every construct on the map is compared with every other by the meaning of its definitions, and the closest one is surfaced here. The nearest construct to skin is parenchyma.

Hold this as a prompt, not a verdict. Two constructs sitting close in meaning is a reason to read them side by side and decide for yourself whether they are one idea under two names. It is not proof that they are. Compare the meanings in the Collider.

skin2 CONSTRUCTSBuilding skinSEMPER · BUILDING SKINSkin effectMAXWELL · SKIN EFFECT

Spokes are fields; dashed arcs are shared lineage. Tap a field for its definition, unit, and measures.

1860Building skin1873Skin effect
2026

Drag to watch the word get claimed. Each field appears at the publication date of the earliest source cited for it. Tap a year to see which.

Architecture

A building's outer envelope

In architecture a building's skin is its outer enclosing layer, the facade or envelope that wraps the structure and separates inside from outside: in framed construction it carries no load and hangs on the frame as a curtain wall. Gottfried Semper's Der Stil (1860) advanced the principle of dressing (Bekleidung), treating this enclosing surface as a cladding descended from woven walls and hangings rather than as structure, which set up the idea of an outer layer distinct from what holds the building up. Francis Ching's Architecture: Form, Space, and Order (1979) places this enclosing envelope among the basic elements of a building. The referent is the physical outer wrapping of a building, and it has nothing to do with a layer of living tissue or with current inside a conductor.[1][2]

Unit
One building's enclosing envelope, by facade area and by the performance of a unit of it
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Quantified by facade area, thermal transmittance, airtightness, and control of daylight, solar gain, and water

Electrical engineering

the tendency of alternating current to crowd toward a conductor's surface, raising its effective resistance as frequency rises.

In electrical engineering the skin effect is the tendency of an alternating current to crowd toward the outer surface of a conductor, so that the current density is highest at the surface and falls off toward the centre, which raises the conductor's effective resistance as frequency rises. The effect was treated mathematically in Maxwell's A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (1873) and analysed for wires by Oliver Heaviside in the 1880s, whose Electrical Papers (1892) fixed the name. The depth over which the current falls to about a third of its surface value, the skin depth, shrinks as frequency grows. The referent is a distribution of current inside a metal, and it shares nothing with a covering on a body or the outer wall of a building.[3][4]

Unit
A current distribution across a conductor's cross section, set by frequency and material
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Characterised by the skin depth and by the frequency-dependent rise in the conductor's effective resistance

Next

Run it through the Collider, or take the citations with you.

See how skin sits against neighbouring constructs in the Collider, or export every reference on this page in one click.

Open in ColliderExport BibTeXReport this collision

Nearby collisions

barrier4 fields · 7 citationsjingle · one word, four constructsenvelope4 fields · 6 citationsjingle · one word, four constructsmembrane4 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, four constructs

References

  1. Semper, G. (1860). Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Künsten, oder Praktische Ästhetik (Vol. 1). Frankfurt: Verlag für Kunst und Wissenschaft.
  2. Ching, F. D. K. (1979). Architecture: Form, space, and order. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
  3. Maxwell, J. C. (1873). A treatise on electricity and magnetism (Vol. 2). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  4. Heaviside, O. (1892). Electrical papers (Vol. 2). London: Macmillan.

Cited on this page?

Confirm your construct, or correct us.

If your work is cited behind one of these entries, you know better than we do whether we captured the meaning right. Confirm it, suggest an edit, or dispute it, and your name goes on the entry as an author who has checked it, linked to your ORCID.

Claim your construct