Most of the time it doesn’t matter, but there are three cases I know of that do:

1. Most common is workability. The higher the slump the easier it is to move around once poured. 3″-4″ is usually taken as the baseline.
2. Indication of water content. The water content will determine strength values during cure times. Also, less water can speed up cure times in some types of concrete with the understanding that the strength profile will continue to increase over time.
3. Indication of lateral loads imposed by concrete. Low or zero slump concrete is more self-supporting than high slump concrete. Therefore, it can be calculated how much force the concrete will apply to the forms or other containing structures.

As a few others have mentioned, it has more to do with the way structures are built rather than the material. An earthquake-resistant building constructed of marshmallow can be very successful, but it would barely resemble a building constructed of stone designed to resist earthquakes.

Strategies for large flat buildings are also very different from tall narrow buildings.

Basically, I don’t think you’re going to get the answer you’re looking for without more description.

As porosity decreases:

Porosity – decreases

Density – decreases

Apparent density – decreases or can’t be determined

Strength – decreases slightly or can’t be determined

Water absorption – likely increases or can’t be determined

Frost resistance – likely decreases or can’t be determined

Thermal conductivity – likely remains unchanged

The deck is the part you walk or drive upon.

Suspension refers to a type of bridge construction. The easiest example are bridges with cables.

Trusses are structural members similar to beams, but made up of many smaller pieces. Think of freeway sign structures or outdoor concert stage rigging.

A viaduct is bridge. Specifically, a bridge constructed in a similar manner to roman aqueducts will smaller spans touching the ground rather than a single span.

Typically, your floor slab would be poured on top of your toe slab. Otherwise, you have a problem of the shear at the end of the toe. Unless you really thicken the slab and increase the reinforcement you will get a large crack at the end of the toe. Most designers and engineers avoid this by placing the slab on top of the toe.

The Addams family house, and most other haunted houses for that matter, are variations on the Queen Ann style of architecture.

Those variations tend towards Victorian and Edwardian styles with a little Tutor thrown in for the older variants.

Firstly, there are no hard definitions.

Mid-rise: Between 3–10 stories. A lot of jurisdictions place the lower end at 6+ stories as most buildings can no longer be constructed primarily of wood.

High-rise: Usually 7 or more stories. A lot of jurisdictions place the lower end at 10+ stories. This is largely attributed to Chicago’s requirement during the 1880’s that any building 10 stories or more need a method other than stairs to reach each floor.

Think of the ocean or any other large body of water. There are a lot of things going on. Hot spots, different densities, plumbs rising and falling within the body of water.

Now, let’s put a large comparably thin material floating on top. Think of ice sheets in the arctic or antarctic. Ice sheets can flow along with a current if too many different stresses are occurring the ice sheet tend to rip apart or fracture. When the ice sheet encounters another ice sheet they may separate, grind past each other while tearing off pieces or they slowly mash into each other piling up chucks of ice until you have hills are larger.

If it’s thin you get pools of liquid water, if it’s thick you have a very stable base.

Back to your speed question. Yes, all of these things add or take away from the speed, but you are applying forces to such a large object that it moves quite slow or immediately breaks up under the stresses.

Ian Marr·June 24, 2020Architect

At no point am I aware of the length defining either.

In the human scale, a tunnel goes through something and a bridge crosses over something.

In the quantum scale, a tunnel is a passage through a time-space medium while a bridge tends to be connection between two separate things.

But, perhaps you are referring to something altogether different.

Most foundations are going to be shallow foundations as they are almost always the easiest and cheapest solution. Bearing capacity is usually the governing issue for this.

If you exceed, or come close to, your bearing capacity you would typically move to a deep foundation solution.

There are other cases which involve special conditions in the soil. Such as liquefaction, subsidence, or expansive soils. None of these need deep foundations, but they can be used as a strategy to move past the issue into deeper, more stable, soil conditions.