Groundscraper

A groundscraper is a large building, typically built for offices, that spreads out horizontally across a wide area of land rather than rising vertically, staying low or medium rise while occupying a correspondingly large footprint. Encarta's definition, cited in the literature on the type, describes it as a large low or medium rise building, usually holding offices, that spreads horizontally and takes up a great deal of land. The main building of the Estonian National Museum is often cited as an example of the type, since it holds only a single floor yet covers more than twenty thousand square meters, illustrating how a groundscraper trades height for sprawl.