gebaute

Gebaute is the attributive form of the German past participle gebaut (to build) used as an adjective. It describes something that has been constructed or is man-made. In discussions of architecture, urban planning, geography and environmental studies, gebaute is often used to distinguish built, human-made spaces and structures from natural ones. A common collocation is die gebaute Umwelt, meaning the built environment, which encompasses buildings, streets, infrastructure and other human-made landscape features.

Grammar and usage notes: gebaute behaves like a normal German adjective. After definite articles or other determiners, it takes the weak ending. For example, das gebaute Gebäude (the built building), die gebaute Umwelt (the built environment). In plural: die gebauten Häuser (the built houses). When used with indefinite articles, the endings differ (ein gebautes Haus). The term is chiefly used in formal, academic, or policy contexts and is less common in everyday speech than more specific nouns such as Gebäude or Infrastruktur.

Examples of contexts: urban design discussions may contrast gebaute Infrastruktur with natural or undeveloped spaces; planning reports may analyze changes in the gebaute Landschaft; scholarly work may refer to principles of gebaute Form or built form in city typologies.

See also: built environment, architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, infrastructure. While gebaute is a descriptive term, its precise nuance depends on the surrounding nouns and the specific field of use.