Vernacular Architecture in 21st.pdf

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Vernacular Architecturein the Twenty-FirstCentury

At the dawn of a new millennium, in a time of rapid technological developmentsand globalization, vernacular architecture still occupies a marginal position.Largely ignored in architectural education, research and practice, recognition ofthe achievements, experience and skills of the worlds vernacular buildersremains limited. Faced with the persistent denial of the importance of vernaculararchitecture, questions about its function and meaning in the twenty-first centurypresent themselves.

This book, written by authors from a variety of disciplinary back-grounds, aims to give the initial impetus to discussions about the way in which thevernacular can play a part in the provision of future built environments. Analysingthe value of vernacular traditions to such diverse fields as housing, conservation,sustainable development, disaster management and architectural design, the con-tributors argue that there are valuable lessons to be learnt from the traditionalknowledge, skills and expertise of the vernacular builders of the world.

The contributors argue for a more processual, critical and forward-looking approach to vernacular research, education and practice. Drawing on casestudies from around the world, they aim to show that such an approach willenable the active implementation of vernacular know-how in a contemporarycontext, and will show that there still is a place for vernacular architecture in thetwenty-first century.

Lindsay Asquith worked with Paul Oliver on the compilation of the Encyclopediaof Vernacular Architecture of the World (1997) and subsequently as a ResearchAssociate in the Department of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University. Shecompleted her PhD in 2003 and now works as an Architectural Design Consultantin the housing sector.

Marcel Vellinga is Research Director of the International Vernacular ArchitectureUnit at Oxford Brookes University. He is the author of Constituting Unity andDifference: Vernacular Architecture in a Minangkabau Village (2004) and of variousarticles dealing with the anthropology of architecture in Indonesia. He is currentlyco-editing, with Paul Oliver, the Atlas of Vernacular Architecture of the World.

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Vernacular Architecture in theTwenty-First CenturyTheory, education and practice

Edited by Lindsay Asquith and Marcel Vellinga

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First published 2006

by Taylor & Francis

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Taylor & Francis

270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Taylor & Francis is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

2006 Lindsay Asquith and Marcel Vellinga, selection and editorial material;

individual chapters, the contributors

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or

utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known

or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information

storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN10: 0415357810 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0415357950 (pbk)

ISBN13: 9780415357814 (hbk)

ISBN13: 9780415357951 (pbk)

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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledgescollection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

Dedicated to Paul and Valerie Oliver

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Contents

List of illustration credits ix

List of contributors xi

Preface xv

Foreword xviiNezar AlSayyad

Introduction 1Lindsay Asquith and Marcel Vellinga

Part I The vernacular as process 21

1 Building tradition: control and authority in vernacular architecture 23Simon J. Bronner

2 Endorsing indigenous knowledge: the role of masons and apprenticeship in sustaining vernacular architecture the case of Djenne 46Trevor H.J. Marchand

3 Forms and meanings of mobility: the dwellings and settlements of sedentarized Irish Travellers 63Anna Hoare

4 Engaging the future: vernacular architecture studies in the twenty-first century 81Marcel Vellinga

Part II Learning from the vernacular 95

5 Traditionalism and vernacular architecture in the twenty-first century 97Suha zkan

6 Learning from the vernacular: basic principles for sustaining human habitats 110Roderick J. Lawrence

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7 Lessons from the vernacular: integrated approaches and new methods for housing research 128Lindsay Asquith

8 Sheltering from extreme hazards 145Ian Davis

9 A journey through space: cultural diversity in urban planning 155Geoffrey Payne

Part III Understanding the vernacular 177

10 Vernacular design as a model system 179Amos Rapoport

11 Generative concepts in vernacular architecture 199Ronald Lewcock

12 The future of the vernacular: towards new methodologies for the understanding and optimization of the performance of vernacular buildings 215Isaac A. Meir and Susan C. Roaf

13 Architectural education and vernacular building 231Howard Davis

14 Educating architects to become culturally aware 245Rosemary Latter

Afterword: raising the roof 262Paul Oliver

Bibliography 269Index 288

Contents

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Illustration credits

The authors and the publishers would like to thank the following individuals andinstitutions for giving permission to reproduce material in this book. We havemade every effort to contact copyright holders, but if any errors have been made we would be happy to correct them a a later printing

Chapter 1 Simon J. Bronner: 1.11.3, 1.61.9 Mel Horst: 1.4, 1.5

Chapter 2 Trevor H.J. Marchand: 2.12.4

Chapter 6 Roderick J. Lawrence: 6.16.5

Chapter 7 Lindsay Asquith: 7.17.8; Tables 7.17.2

Chapter 9Courtesy of Culpin Planning: 9.89.9 Courtesy of Halcrow Fox and Associates: 9.10a, 9.10b Gunter Nitschke: 9.19.4 Geoffrey Payne: 9.59.7, 9.11

Chapter 10Based on Rapoport (1990c: Fig. 4.18, p. 100; 1999a: Fig. 1. p. 57): 10.1;

(1990a: Fig. 3.12, p. 111; 1998: Fig. 7. p. 14; 2001: Fig. 2.1; 2004: Figs 3739): 10.2

Rapoport (1990e: Fig. 2.2, p. 12; 2004: Fig. 47): 10.3; (1998: Fig. 6. p. 11; 2000a: Fig. 4. p. 149; 2000b: Fig. 2, p. 129; 2004: Fig. 45; in press, b: Fig. 4; in press, c: Fig. 5): 10.4

Chapter 11Clark, G. and Piggott, Stuart (1970: Prehistoric Societies, Harmondsworth:

Penguin [source of original not identified]): 11.1b Crme, J. (1959: LArchitectura Romana in Encyclopedia Classica, III, Vol. 2.1.

p. 1. Turin): 11.5d Encyclopedia of World Art, IX (1958: New York: McGraw Hill, pl. 427, bottom

left): 11.4d

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Griaule, M. (1948: Dieu dEau: entretiens avec Ogotemmli, Paris: ditions duChne. Translated as Conversations with Ogotemmeli. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1965, p. 95, Fig. 8. Copyright International AfricanInstitute): 11.8c, 11.8d

Griaule, M. (1949: LImage du Monde au Sudan in Journal de la Socit desAfricanistes, XIX, ii, Socit des Africanistes): 11.8a

Haberland, Wolfgang (1964: Art of the World, the Art of North America, NewYork: Crown Publishers, p. 117): 11.1e

Hitchcock, H.R. (1942: In the Nature of Materials, 18871941: The Buildings ofFrank Lloyd Wright, New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, p. 107): 11.9d

Honda, Tomotsune: 11.2 acKroeber, A.L. (1972: Handbook of the Indians of California, Dover, New York:

Bulletin Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology 78): 11.1d Leacroft, H. and R. (1966: The Building of Ancient Greece, New York:

W.R. Scott, p. 3): 11.3a; (p. 8) 11.3c; (p. 6) 11.3d Ronald Lewcock: 11.4b, 11.4c, 11.5a, 11.6b, 11.6c, 11.7c, 11.9a, 11.9b MacKendrick, P. (1962: The Greek Stones Speak: The Story of Archaeology in

Greek Lands, New York: St. Martins Press, p. 20, Fig. 1.8): 11.3b Mellaart, J. (1967: Catal Huyuk: A Neolithic Town in Anatolia, London: Thames &

Hudson): 11.1c Oliver, Paul (1975: Shelter Sign and Symbol, London: Barrie & Jenkins, p. 208,

upper left): 11.8b Piggott, Stuart (1966: Ancient Europe from the Beginning of Agriculture to

Classical Antiquity, Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, p. 29 ): 11.1a ; (p. 98, Fig. 51 right) 11.4a [sources of originals not identified]

Ragette, F. (1974: Architecture in Lebanon, Beirut: American University of Beirut,p. 87, Fig 14): 11.5c; (p. 70, lower left) 11.6a

Renfrew, Colin (ed.) (1988: An Atlas of Archaelogy, London: Times Books; NewYork: HarperCollins, p. 98): 11.5b

Semper, G. (1963: Der Stil II. Reproduced in: Mallgrave, H.F., 1996, GottfriedSemper, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, p. 199): 11.9c

Volwahsen, A., (1969) Living Architecture: Indian, New York: Grosset & Dunlap,p. 44): 11.7a; (p. 87) 11.7b [sources of originals not identified]

Wiegand, Priene (1904: Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen und Untersuchungen inden Jahren 18951898, Berlin: G. Reimer): 11.3e

Chapter 12 Rajat Gupta: 12.6 Isaac A. Meir: 12.1, 12.3, 12.5 Meir, Gilead, Runsheng, Mackenzie Bennett and Roaf, 2003: Table 12.1 Meir, Mackenzie Bennett and Roaf, 2001: Table 12.2 Susan C. Roaf: 12.2

Chapter 14 Foundation Jaume II el Just: 14.4 ISVA 1999: 14.2 Rosemary Latter: 14.1, 14.3

Illustration credits

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Contributors

Lindsay Asquith worked with Paul Oliver on the compilation of the Encyclopediaof Vernacular Architecture of the World (1997) and subsequently as a ResearchAssociate in the Department of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University. Shecompleted her PhD in 2003 and now works as an Architectural Design Consultantin the housing sector.

Simon J. Bronner is Distinguished University Professor of American Studies andFolklore at the Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg. He has published manybooks on material culture, including American Material Culture and Folklife (1985),Grasping Things: Folk Material Culture and Mass Society in America (1986) andFolk Art and Art Worlds (1986). He is editor of the Material Worlds Series for theUniversity Press of Kentucky and PennsylvaniaGerman History and CultureSeries for Penn State Press.

Howard Davis is Professor of Architecture at the University of Oregon. He is theauthor of The Culture of Building (1999). He also contributed eighteen entries inthe Encyclopedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World. His research interestsinclude contemporary European architecture and its production, mixed-use build-ings, community-based initiatives in south and southeast Asia, and Americanarchitectural education.

Ian Davis is a Visiting Professor in the Resilience Centre of Cranfield Universityand has worked in Disaster Management since 1972. He has worked as a senioradvisor to various NGOs, governments and UN organizations and has experiencein research, advocacy, higher education and consultancy. He has published widelyon disaster related themes, including, most recently, as co-author, At Risk: NaturalHazards, Peoples Vulnerability and Disasters (2003).

Anna Hoare is studying for the MRes in Anthropology at University College,London, specializing in the anthropology of dwelling and settlement. She is study-ing the sedentary settlement forms of Irish Travellers, following earlier researchinto Irish Travellers nomadic movement patterns. She is an MA graduate inInternational Vernacular Architecture Studies led by Paul Oliver at Oxford BrookesUniversity.

Rosemary Latter is the co-chair of the Masters course in International Studies inVernacular Architecture at the Department of Architecture, Oxford Brookes

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University. Qualified as an architect since 1988, she has practised in London,Paris and Seville. Her research interests stem from work on the ComparativeLexicon in the Encyclopedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World.

Roderick J. Lawrence is Professor in the Faculty of Social and EconomicSciences at the University of Geneva and works in the Centre for Human Ecologyand Environmental Sciences. In January 1997 he was nominated for the NewYork Academy of Science. He is the director of a continuing education course onsustainable development and Agenda 21 at the University of Geneva.

Ronald Lewcock was Aga Khan Professor in Architecture at MIT from 1984 to 1992. He has previously taught at Natal, Columbia, Cambridge and the Archi-tectural Association. He is now Professor in the Doctoral Program in Architecture,Georgia Institute of Technology. In addition to practice, he has been technical coordinator of two UNESCO International Campaigns, and consultant on conser-vation in many Asian and African countries.

Trevor H.J. Marchand studied architecture at McGill University and anthropologyat the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. He is currently a lecturer inanthropology at SOAS, specializing in building crafts and skill-based knowledge.He is the author of Minaret Building and Apprenticeship in Yemen (2001) and TheMasons of Djenne (forthcoming).

Isaac A. Meir studied architecture and town planning, and archaeology, and is asenior researcher (since 1986) at the Desert Architecture and Urban PlanningUnit, Institute for Desert Research, Israel. He is involved in research and designprojects concerned with appropriate design and planning, energy conservationand adaptation to desert conditions, and has authored and co-authored overeighty papers, chapters and technical reports.

Suha zkan studied architecture at the Middle East Technical University (METU)in Ankara, and theory of design at the Architectural Association in London. Drzkan has served as secretary general of the Aga Khan Award for Architecturesince 1991 and as a jury member on various international awards, and hasorganized international architecture competitions.

Geoffrey Payne is a housing and urban development consultant with more thanthirty years experience. He has undertaken consultancy, research and trainingassignments in most parts of the world, taught in several universities, written,edited or contributed to many publications and participated in numerous inter-national conferences and workshops. His latest book (with Michael Majale) is TheUrban Housing Manual: Making Regulatory Frameworks Work for the Poor (2004).

Amos Rapoport is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Architecture at theUniversity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is one of the founders of Environment

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Behaviour Studies. His work has focused mainly on the role of cultural variables,cross-cultural studies and theory development and synthesis. His six books andmany other publications have been translated into a number of languages.

Susan C. Roaf is Professor in the Department of Architecture at Oxford BrookesUniversity. During ten years in Iran and Iraq she studied aspects of traditionaltechnologies, including nomadic tents, windcatchers, ice-houses, landscape andwater wheels. In 1995 she built her own Ecohouse in Oxford with the first UKphotovoltaic roof. She is widely published on a range of subjects from traditionaltechnologies, passive building design and renewable energy systems.

Marcel Vellinga is Research Director of the International Vernacular ArchitectureUnit at Oxford Brookes University. He is the author of Constituting Unity andDifference: Vernacular Architecture in a Minangkabau Village (2004) and of various articles dealing with the anthropology of architecture in Indonesia. He iscurrently co-editing, with Paul Oliver, the Atlas of Vernacular Architecture of the World.

Contributors

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Preface

The compilation of this book began as a tribute to Paul Oliver. We have both hadthe privilege of working with Paul for a number of years and his knowledge and experience have been not only an inspiration, but an essential part of our education in the field of vernacular architecture studies. His dedication, commit-ment and enthusiasm for a subject which is often marginalized, if not ignored, is unparalleled.

Pauls late wife Valerie was instrumental in the planning stages of thisvolume, and we are indebted to her for her knowledge of the peoples, places andevents that all contributed to the journey she and Paul undertook to heightenunderstanding and knowledge of the building traditions that exist among themany cultures and habitats throughout the world. She is greatly missed by us asa colleague, mentor and friend.

The authors represented in this book by no means make up an exhaus-tive list of specialists in the field of vernacular architecture. Many have written onthe subject for a number of years and some are just beginning their work in thefield, but all are committed to the education and transfer of knowledge that isimperative if the field of vernacular architecture studies is to grow and achieve theimportance it deserves. Working in such diverse fields as architecture, planning,housing, urban studies, anthropology and folklore studies, they also represent themulti-disciplinary nature of the discourse.

We would like to thank all of the authors for their valuable contribu-tions to this book and especially want to acknowledge the intended contributionby Jeffrey Cook, who sadly passed away before the completion of his chapter onclimate change and the vernacular. We also thank Nezar AlSayyad for agreeing towrite the foreword to this volume, and of course Paul Oliver for the afterword. Wewould also like to acknowledge the support of our families in this endeavour andespecially Zita Vellinga for the compilation of the bibliography and index. We alsoexpress our gratitude to Caroline Mallinder and her team at Taylor & Francis, forsupporting the project from the beginning and the valuable assistance they havegiven us.

Our aim in all of this is to further the debate on the importance ofvernacular architecture studies now and throughout the twenty-first century, notas a study of past traditions, but as a contribution to new methods, solutions andachievements for the future built environment. If this is achieved it will be to the

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credit of not only those that contributed to this work, but to all those involved inthe field, academics and practitioners alike, whose integrated and dynamicapproaches will ensure that the vernacular does not stand still, but continues toinfluence and enhance the world we live in.

Lindsay Asquith and Marcel Vellinga, February 2005

Preface

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ForewordNezar AlSayyad

Vernacular architecture is a nineteenth-century invention. As a category of schol-arship, its presence has been consolidated in courses and research programmesin the academy in the last two decades of the twentieth century. However, it hasremained a considerably unknown subject in the arenas of public and policy dis-courses.

What would a vernacular architecture for the twenty-first century looklike? Will the discussion of it be different or more influential? Will vernacular archi-tecture simply disappear? Or will everything simply be classified as vernacular?These are the challenges of vernacular architecture in the twenty-first century andthis important book attempts to address some of them.

As someone who has been involved in the study of the vernacular fora quarter of a century, I am often asked to define the vernacular. But while thereare many operational definitions of the vernacular, the first challenge we mustconfront is the etymological and epistemological limitations of the concept. Themany members of the International Association for the Study of TraditionalEnvironments (IASTE), which I co-founded eighteen years ago, have taken on thisparticular challenge.

Etymologically, for anything to be considered vernacular, it has alwaysbeen assumed that it must be native or unique to a specific place, producedwithout the need for imported components and processes, and possibly built bythe individuals who occupy it. In the twenty-first century, as culture and traditionare becoming less place-rooted and more information-based, these particularattributes of the vernacular have to be recalibrated to reflect these changes.

Epistemologically, or with regard to our ways of knowing and classify-ing, the meaning of the vernacular also has to change. For example, the idea ofmodern knowledge as different from, and possibly opposite to, vernacular know-ledge should be abandoned as we recognize that the vernacular in some instancesmay in fact be the most modern of the modern. Many years ago at the first IASTEconference, Y.-F. Tuan argued that tradition is often a product of the absence ofchoice. As such, we must come to terms with the nature of constraint in the prac-tices of the vernacular. We must accept that the gradual change that occurs invernacular architecture over long periods of time is not a result of conservativepractices and aesthetics but simply of geographic or economic limitations thatcannot be overcome by a segment of the local population of a region.

Another major challenge we have to face in the twenty-first centuryconcerns our methods. Here I am not only referring to what we do as scholars in

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various disciplines when we go out in the field, but also what we choose to focuson in our study. Again, at the first IASTE conference, Paul Oliver argued that thereis no such thing as a traditional building but rather buildings that embody certainvernacular traditions. He urged us to focus our attention on the practice of trans-mission as a way of understanding the vernacular and maintaining it. Oliversadvice is still valid; the only difference, perhaps, is that the practices of transmis-sion have changed considerably in an era of technological advancement andincreased communication. We should no longer assume that vernacular buildersare unskilled, illiterate, technologically ignorant or isolated from the world ofglobal communication.

The last but most important challenge that we as scholars of the vernacular have to face concerns the utility of our labour. Of course, researchabout the vernacular is valuable in and of itself as a field of humanistic discourse.But researchers of the vernacular, as attested by the contributors to this book, arenot simply satisfied with the status quo. If earlier work on the vernacular con-sisted primarily of object-oriented, socially-oriented or culturally-oriented studies,the direction outlined by this book is a new one that I could call activist-orientedstudies. With such studies, there is a recognition of the limitations of the vernac-ular, and of the reasons why the professional community continues to shun it.More research on these issues will be needed.

More research also needs to be done on the assumed utility of ver-nacular knowledge in the field of housing, particularly in relation to solving theproblems of urban squatters. The connection between the two areas of know-ledge is not yet well established. In addition, further research should be done onthe sustainability of vernacular settings. As some of the contributors to this booksuggest, some vernacular forms are neither sustainable nor efficient and I wouldindeed add that they are often unaffordable. We also need to know the signifi-cance of our own classification of emerging forms of squatting as a newvernacular.

We should not be left with the belief that everything is vernacular yetnothing is vernacular any more. As I have argued in the last few years, the ver-nacular is not dead, and it has not ended. What has ended, or should end, is ourconception of it as the only harbinger of authenticity, as the container of specificdetermined cultural meaning, as a static legacy of a past. What will emerge, I hope, is a vernacular as a political project, a project whose principal mission isthe dynamic interpretation and re-interpretation of this past in light of an ever-changing present. This, I believe, would be a vernacular architecture worthyof the twenty-first century.

Berkeley, September 2005

Foreword

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IntroductionLindsay Asquith and Marcel Vellinga

In his Hepworth Lecture entitled Vernacular architecture in the twenty-firstcentury, read for the Prince of Wales Institute in 1999, Paul Oliver drawsattention to the fact that, at the dawn of the new century, vernacular architecturestill occupies a marginal position (Oliver 1999). Recognition and support fromprofessionals and policymakers involved in the fields of architecture and housingis still not forthcoming. Vernacular architecture continues to be associated withthe past, underdevelopment and poverty, and there seems to be little interestamong planners, architects and politicians in the achievements, experience andskills of the worlds vernacular builders or the environmentally and culturallyappropriate qualities of the buildings they produce. Native American pueblos,Indonesian longhouses or West African family compounds may be admired fortheir conspicuous design, functionality or aesthetic qualities, but they are hardlyever regarded as relevant to current housing projects. More often than not, ver-nacular houses are regarded as obstacles on the road to progress, which shouldbe replaced by house types and living patterns that fit western notions of basichousing needs but which are adverse to the norms, wishes and values of thecultures concerned.

As Oliver points out, this attitude towards vernacular architecture isshort-sighted. At the beginning of a new century, a major challenge facing theglobal community is to house the billions of people that inhabit the world, nowand in the future, in culturally and environmentally sustainable ways. Current esti-mates predict an increase of the worlds population to approximately 9 billionpeople in 2050, all of whom will need to be housed. Though actual numbers donot exist and estimates vary, vernacular dwellings, built by their owners andinhabitants using locally available resources and technologies, according to regu-lations and forms that have been handed down and adapted to circumstancesthrough local traditions, are presently believed to constitute about 90 per cent ofthe worlds total housing stock (Oliver 2003: 15). The problem of housing theworld has not yet attracted the amount of attention paid to issues of health, food,climate change or the depletion of biodiversity, Oliver notes, yet it is one that willhave to be recognized and faced by governments and other policymakers if thefuture well-being of the global population is to be ensured. In order to meet theunprecedented demand for houses, he writes, it is essential that vernacular build-ing traditions are supported; to assist local builders in matters of sanitation anddisaster preparedness, while at the same time learning and benefiting from theirexperience, knowledge and skills (1999: 11; see also Oliver 2003: 25863).

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The serious issue of global housing and, more particularly, the positivecontribution that vernacular architecture could make to it cannot be ignored bythose professionally involved in the fields of planning and housing. Furthermore,it should not be ignored by the media and academia. As in politics and policy-making, much media attention is paid to environmental, food and health issuesbut, as the agenda and news coverage of the 2002 World Summit on SustainableDevelopment in Johannesburg has shown (e.g. United Nations 2001), compara-tively little thought is given to matters of housing. At an academic level, theinter-disciplinary field of vernacular architecture studies has admittedly grownsignificantly in the last decades of the twentieth century, with important andsometimes pioneering work done by architects, anthropologists and geog-raphers. Yet, as Oliver notes, there are few academic courses or educationalresources available to students, and formal recognition among scholars involvedin these and other fields is still lacking.

Olivers paper addresses an important issue and asks for a further elab-oration of the future role and importance of vernacular traditions. The problem ofhousing a rapidly increasing world population constitutes a major concern formankind, yet it is not the only challenge to be faced in the twenty-first century.Environmental crises and climate change; processes of economic and politicalglobalization; cultural interaction and conflicts caused by migration, tourism andwar; and rapid technological developments constitute some of the other majorissues that profoundly effect the way in which the world is perceived, organizedand lived in at the beginning of the new millennium. Each of these issues has majorsocial and cultural implications, and all of them relate in one way or another tovernacular traditions. Important questions regarding the function and meaning of vernacular traditions therefore arise for those involved in the field of vernaculararchitecture studies: how, for instance, will vernacular traditions be affected by theecological, cultural and technological changes? What part can they play in them?Will they be able to respond or adapt in order to come to terms with the newecological and cultural circumstances, or will they be forced to disappear, as somany traditions already have done in the course of the last century? Are particularelements of traditions more susceptible to change or preservation than others?Can certain changes more easily be incorporated than others, and will there be regional or cultural differences? In short: is there still a place for vernaculararchitecture in the twenty-first century?

It will be noted that such questions are not new or specific to the begin-ning of the twenty-first century, because cultures and vernacular building traditionshave always been dynamic and changing. Yet, it is important that they areaddressed, not only because of the global scope and unparalleled pace of thechanges, but also because doing so will help to increase the academic, profes-sional, political and public awareness of the importance and relevance of vernacu-lar architecture, and as such may lead to the disposal of its stigma of a backwardpast, poverty and underdevelopment. Despite popular conceptions to the contrary,vernacular building traditions are not remnants of an underdeveloped or romanticpast, but are of importance and relevance to many cultures and peoples in the

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world, past, present and future. From a purely academic point of view, an under-standing of the way in which vernacular traditions respond and react to ecological,technological and cultural changes will offer better insights in the nature of tradi-tions and the processes of change that at different times and in various parts of theworld have led to the disappearance, adaptation, revival or endurance of suchtraditions. From a more practical and professional perspective, such insights mayhelp us to identify how vernacular architecture may best play a part in current andfuture attempts to create an appropriate and sustainable built environment for all.

As the contributions to follow show, the issues surrounding the poten-tial, function and meaning of vernacular architecture in the twenty-first centuryare complex and extensive. This book is not intended to address them all, but aims to give the initial impetus to discussions that will hopefully result in agreater understanding and acknowledgement of the future importance of vernac-ular traditions. The subject is explored through chapters that each address an important aspect of vernacular architecture or reflect on the academic andprofessional discourse on it, dealing with issues such as theory, education, sus-tainability, housing, disaster management, conservation and design. Written byauthors from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, the chapters aim to provide an overview of the current state of affairs regarding the study of vernacular archi-tecture and attempt to indicate how vernacular traditions relate to, and perhapsmay contribute to the way one may deal with, some of the major issues facingthe global community in the coming age. As such, they are hoped to become astarting-point for future research and education. Although vernacular architecturestudies is emerging as a promising and fascinating area of study in recent years,much still needs to be done, both theoretically, methodologically and throughrecording and documentation, before the relevance of vernacular architecture inthe twenty-first century can be acknowledged and understood.

Vernacular architecture studies and the futureAs Oliver (1997b: xxiii) has noted, research in vernacular architecture may have to wait some time before it has an historian. Still, generally speaking, it can be saidthat the interest in vernacular architecture in the sense of non-classical and non-western buildings can be traced back to the eighteenth century, while the firstscholarly analyses of vernacular architecture as rural, non-monumental and pre-industrial traditions started to appear in the late nineteenth century (Upton 1990 and1993; Oliver 1997b). Many of these early studies were made in Europe and the US,often by antiquarians and architects who were influenced by the Arts and Craftsmovement. Writings of this period on the vernacular traditions of the non-westernworld were often embedded in the accounts of the many travellers, missionariesand colonial officials who, in a time of rapid colonization and scientific exploration,were scattered around the world and encountered buildings that were often fundamentally different from the ones they were familiar with back home. In bothcases, many of the studies were tinged by nostalgia for traditions that, thoughoften in decline, were regarded as examples of functionalist aesthetics and that,consequently, were often seen to serve as sources of inspiration for contemporary

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design (Oliver 1997b: xxiii). Not infrequently in such accounts, vernacular buildingswere seen as more innocent, natural or spontaneous, and therefore truer than, ifnot superior to, their later counterparts (Upton 1990: 200).

Although many of these early studies, particularly those dealing withwestern traditions, were used as a means to evade and criticise contemporaryarchitectural practice, they usually did not pay much explicit attention to the wayin which the traditions concerned might contribute to the creation of future builtenvironments. Nor (leaving aside notable exceptions such as Morgan (1965)) didthey focus much on the ways in which the vernacular traditions related to thecultures of which they formed part. On the whole their interest was in thedocumentation, classification and naming of historic or traditional forms, plans,materials and styles, most of which (especially in the case of non-westerntraditions) were regarded as destined to disappear. This tendency to focus on the documentation and preservation of traditions that were regarded as morespontaneous, instinctive and true, without paying much attention to culturalcontext or, indeed, the future potential of the traditions concerned, persisted wellinto the twentieth century (e.g. Rudofsky 1964). The late 1960s, however, sawthe publication of a number of seminal works that, by stressing the importance of studying the vernacular within its historic and cultural context, sought to free the vernacular from its associations with anonymity, nostalgia and the past,and explicitly stressed the part that vernacular traditions may play in the provisionof more sustainable settlements and buildings for the future (Oliver 1969;Rapoport 1969). Written in a time of rapid modernization, these studies provideda major research impetus and contributed greatly to the increased recognition of vernacular architecture studies as a multi-disciplinary field of academic and professional interest.

The ever-growing number of studies that has continued to appear sincethis time has greatly increased our knowledge and understanding of historic andcontemporary vernacular traditions, both in the western and non-western world(e.g. Glassie 1975; Upton and Vlach 1986; Bourdier and AlSayyad 1989; Turan1990). Yet despite this undeniable increase, it can be argued that at the beginningof the twenty-first century interest in vernacular traditions is still rather marginaland more obvious in some parts of the world than others, while the numericalrepresentation of scholars from different disciplines remains uneven. Besides,ideas differ about what kind of traditions the category of the vernacular issupposed to consist of, making it difficult to actually speak of a field of vernaculararchitecture studies. Because of the enormous diversity of building traditions clas-sified under the umbrella of the vernacular and the varied disciplinary and nationalbackgrounds of those studying them, it may be said that two very different schol-arly discourses (one, generally speaking, dealing with historical western traditions,and the other with contemporary non-western ones) exist, each with their ownconcepts, perspectives and interests. As Dell Upton (1993: 10) has noted, schol-ars taking part in these discourses work to all intents and purposes ignorant of oneanother. What is more, although both are interested in processes of change, theirattitude towards the status of the vernacular in the future is different.


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Without wanting to oversimplify too much, the discourse on westernvernacular architecture can be said to be largely concerned with the documenta-tion and understanding of the historical, rural and pre-industrial building heritage.Dominated by architectural historians, preservationists, folklorists and geog-raphers, many of the publications on European or North American vernaculararchitecture focus on the classification and dating of individual buildings, or ofspecific forms, materials or plans, tracing distribution and diffusion patterns aswell as changes in type within the context of social history. Though it is neverexpressed in so many words, an implicit assumption of this discourse is thatthere can be no real future for the vernacular, as the ongoing processes ofmodernization and globalization leave the pre-industrial building heritage of farm-houses, barns and mills that form the core of research ever more out of touch withthe present. The reaction of many scholars who form part of this discourse hasbeen to withdraw into the past, to look at the historic meaning, use andconstruction of buildings while ignoring the active re-use, re-interpretation oradaptation of the same or similar traditions in the present. As a result, studies ofparticular buildings, building types or time periods keep increasing in number andbecome ever more detailed, though arguably this goes at the expense of any realunderstanding of the processual nature of the vernacular traditions concerned.

The second discourse on vernacular architecture, which exists inparallel to the first one but with little academic overlap or communication, is moreconcerned with non-western traditions, although studies of western traditions areincluded as well. Studies that document particular vernacular building traditionswithin their cultural and historic context are also common in this discourse, butthese are increasingly complemented by analyses of the ways in which thedesign, use and meaning of these traditions change within the context of con-temporary processes of modernization and globalization. More theoreticallyoriented, paying attention to rural as well as urban traditions, these analyses lookat the impacts of current trends like consumerism, the manufacturing of heritage,deterritorialization and ethnic revitalization on vernacular traditions, and discusswhat the implications of such impacts are in terms of the negotiation of identityand the definition and value of key concepts like tradition, modernity and place.Instead of withdrawing into the past, many of these studies thus actively engagethe present, increasingly arguing that vernacular traditions should be seen asprocesses that dynamically, and inter-dependently relate to identities, evolvingand transforming over time. Nonetheless, as ongoing discussions on the end of tradition and post-traditional environments exemplify (e.g. AlSayyad 2004), itcan be argued that, among many of those involved in this discourse, there is stillan underlying concern for the future survival of the true vernacular in anincreasingly global world.

Largely focusing on the active part that vernacular traditions can play inthe provision of appropriate and sustainable architecture for the future, thechapters in this book build on the work that has been done so far, particularly thatin the discourse on the non-western vernacular. But they also intend to expand itsscope by looking at issues that, until now, have not received much attention.

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Though stimulating and sometimes challenging, many of the studies that havebeen carried out in recent years have focused on the impacts of the process ofglobalization on the constitution of local and regional identities, and the way inwhich these relate to design and the concepts of tradition and modernity. But, asnoted above, apart from the effects of globalization on issues of cultural identity,the global community faces many other challenges at the beginning of the newmillennium, including climate change, the depletion of resources, mass migra-tions, the impacts of natural disasters and ever-growing demands for housing.Though equally important issues in terms of the future role and sustainability ofthe vernacular, the way in which vernacular knowledge and experience may beused to respond to these challenges has so far, despite some notable exceptions(see Afshar and Norton 1997), not been the subject of much discussion (Oliver2003: 14). This book, though by no means covering all the issues concerned, aimsto stimulate some of this discussion.

The message of the book is a forward-looking and positive one. In con-trast to the current stereotypes of a backward and old fashioned past, disappear-ing worlds, underdevelopment and poverty, all authors argue that in this time ofrapid technological development, urbanization, mass consumption and the inter-nationalization of power and wealth, there is still a lot that can be learned from thetraditional knowledge, skills and expertise of the vernacular builders of the world.What is needed to make the active implementation of such vernacular know-howcome true in a modern or development context, is an investment in research and education that explicitly stresses the dynamic nature of vernacular traditions.By critically investigating the achievements and shortcomings of vernacular tradi-tions, and examining the ways in which that which is valuable in the vernacular may be integrated with that which is valuable in modern architectural practice, it will be possible to develop, through upgrading and adaptation, those aspects of contemporary built environments that are currently unsustainable or culturallyinappropriate. Only when such a processual, critical and forward-looking pers-pective is adopted, will it be possible to dismantle the stereotypes that continue to cling to the vernacular and to say that there still is a place for vernacular archi-tecture in the twenty-first century.

In the next section, we will shortly introduce the chapters in the book,which has been divided into three parts. The chapters in Part I deal with theimportance of viewing the vernacular as a process. Those in Part II discuss theways in which the vernacular may provide lessons for contemporary design.Finally, the chapters in Part III identify important areas for future research andeducation.

Part I: The vernacular as processAs has recently been summarized by AlSayyad (2004: 612), the concept of tradi-tion has been a major theme in writings on vernacular architecture, mostespecially in the discourse on non-western traditions. A number of conferenceshave been devoted to its theme, and many important studies published (e.g.Bourdier and AlSayyad 1989; Abu-Lughod 1992; Upton 1993; AlSayyad 2004). In


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line with ideas prevalent in the contemporary fields of anthropology, culturalgeography, history and archaeology, these studies have increasingly stressed thedynamic and processual nature of tradition. Traditions can be seen as creativeprocesses through which people, as active agents, interpret past knowledge and experiences to face the challenges and demands of the present. Arguablythen, as Oliver (1989) has observed, it is this active process of the transmission,interpretation, negotiation and adaptation of vernacular knowledge, skills andexperience that should form the focus of research and teaching, as much as theactual buildings that form their objectification.

The chapters in Part I reiterate and emphasize the importance ofregarding tradition as a creative process, and indeed many contributors to thebook, including Marchand, Lawrence, Vellinga and Howard Davis, identify thedynamics and transmission of vernacular traditions as a crucial focus for futureresearch, practice and education. That tradition is changing and varied and shouldform a central point of attention in vernacular research is perhaps most explicitlydiscussed by Simon Bronner. Defining tradition as a reference to the learning thatgenerates cultural expressions and the authority that precedent holds, Bronnerprovides a concise yet insightful treatise on the processual nature of tradition,focusing especially on the issues of creativity, innovation and authority that itsstudy raises. Tradition, in Bronners view, is about expectation and social accept-ance rather than, as is often noted, constraint. It is as the local saying that gainscredit by long and frequent use. As a reference to precedent and a socialconstruction, tradition invites commentary and interpretation and is often contin-uously re-negotiated, from generation to generation. As such it allows forcreativity, and for adaptations and innovations that may ultimately, when theyhave been socially accepted, be integrated and become part of the tradition.Creativity and tradition, writes Bronner, are intertwined, and represent thecomplex processes of humans expressing themselves to others in ways thatcarry value and meaning.

Taking into account this dynamic balance of social custom and individ-ual innovation leads to important questions of authority and control. Whenstudying vernacular traditions, Bronner notes, one should not just ask why build-ings look the way they do, why they came into being and how they changed alongthe way, but also by whose standards, by what precedents and with whose skillscreation, transmission and change occur. Focusing on three case studies (Jewishsukkah, Amish barn-raisings and recycled houses in Houston), he briefly dis-cusses the dynamics of vernacular building traditions in a complex society suchas twenty-first-century America and notes significant differences in how and whysuch traditions are transmitted and continued. In all three cases though, negotia-tion is inherent to the tradition, and change can be identified as a constant.Because they allow for creativity, innovation and change, Bronner notes, buildingtraditions like the Jewish sukkah and Amish barn-raisings will continue to evolveand change, while new ones like the recycled houses will arguably keep emerg-ing. Though such new grassroots traditions may not be as established as thesukkah or Amish barn-raisings, Bronner notes that they may well represent the

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future of the vernacular in industrialized societies, and shows how studying themmay teach us much about what a tradition is, as well as, importantly, about whata tradition does.

A good ethnographic example of the way in which traditions are con-tinuously re-negotiated through the process of transmission, as well as of howissues of authority and individual creativity play an important part in this dynamicprocess, is provided by Trevor Marchand. In his discussion of the apprenticeshipsystem operated by vernacular masons in Djenne (Mali), Marchand shows howthis age-old form of education simultaneously allows for the gestation and trans-mission of technical knowledge, as well as for the operation of a process ofsocialization that helps to forge the professional identity of aspiring masons.Working within an established system of authority, under the guidance of anestablished master mason, young apprentices are able to obtain the technical,ritual, economic and political skills needed to become a publicly recognizedmason. At the same time, in taking part in the building process and observing theactivities of the master mason they work with, they develop a sense of profes-sional and social identity and, significantly, learn to negotiate the boundaries ofthe tradition. Again, as was also noted by Bronner, these boundaries are not rigidor static. Indeed, Marchand observes, creativity and innovative intervention areawarded and esteemed in Djenne, as it is those elements that ensure that thelocal built environment, combining tradition and innovation, remains meaningful.

The transmission of knowledge and the negotiation of identities andboundaries that takes place through the system of apprenticeship allow themasons of Djenne to sustain standards and enables them to continuously create ameaningful built environment. Such a built environment, Marchand notes, is inher-ently dynamic, while remaining rooted in a dialogue with history and place.Crucially, he argues, this dynamism needs to be taken into account when consid-ering the sustainability of the building tradition. As a UNESCO World Heritage Site,the conservation of the distinctive style-Soudanaise architecture is a major concernin Djenne, involving many actors including architects, conservationists, govern-ment officials, funding bodies and anthropologists. Recalling the issue of authoritydiscussed by Bronner, all these parties (and more) compete for control over themeaning of Djennes architectural heritage. Marchand argues nonetheless that it iscrucial that the expert status of the masons is acknowledged and given centrestage in all this, as it is their knowledge and system of education that ultimatelydefines the tradition. Djennes building tradition, he writes, should be understoodas a set of meaning-making practices rather than a landscape of physical objectsto be conserved for their unique forms or some inherent historic value.

Another example of the way in which a vernacular tradition maychange and adapt to new socio-political or environmental circumstances, but in the process will maintain certain features that are distinctive and specific,having arisen from a unique cultural, social and economic history, is provided byAnna Hoare. Discussing the settlements and dwellings of sedentarized IrishTravellers, Hoare criticises the academic discourse on nomadism, which ingeneral has tended to regard mobility as an ecological adaptation. This view, she


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notes, does not do justice to the cultural dynamics, flexibility and variety ofnomadic groups throughout the world and ignores the fact that mobility may bemotivated by a variety of cultural, social, economic and political factors, servingdifferent purposes in different contexts. It undeservedly suggests passivity onthe part of people in their relations towards external environments and changingcircumstances, to which they apparently merely react. Besides, she writes, itleads to the prevalent notion that, at the beginning of a new millennium,nomadism has outlived its usefulness, and that the way of life and behaviourassociated with it have become redundant and inappropriate.

Questioning this verdict, Hoare sets out to show that nomadic sociallife and mobility are creative, affective factors in themselves rather than depen-dent corollaries of economic and ecological adaptation, and that the vernacularskills, understandings and values of nomadic cultures are therefore likely to findnew forms of social expression, and distinctive ways of living. Focusing on anumber of Irish Traveller groups in the UK and Ireland, all of whom in the secondhalf of the twentieth century have been forced to sedentarize, she shows howmobility is still a distinctive element of Traveller culture, despite the fact that thegroups are now no longer on the road. Its social and political importance isevident, for instance, from the way in which it continues to inform the social com-position of the settlements, to shape the constitution of relationships andidentities, to influence the production and built forms of dwellings, and to framethe experience of a larger world. Despite the forced changes to the vernacularway of living and building, then, life among Irish Travellers continues to representa distinctive cultural trajectory.

The argument that the vernacular should not be regarded as an archi-tectural category consisting of static buildings that need to be carefullysafeguarded, but as a concept which identifies dynamic building traditions thatcontinuously evolve while remaining distinctive to a specific place, is central toMarcel Vellingas chapter. Noting that discussions of change in current discourseson vernacular architecture tend to emphasize processes of loss and decline,Vellinga calls for a critical reconsideration of the concept of the vernacular.Following Upton (1993) he argues that, in the pursuit of recognition for non-western and non-monumental buildings, the concept has unintendedly becomereified. A name, he writes, has become a thing. Essentially, the vernacular hasbeen defined in opposition to the modern. In so doing, Vellinga observes, the ver-nacular has effectively been relegated to the past, to a distinct traditional periodof time that somehow existed before the modern era, while at the same time ithas been denied both a history and future. Because of its non-modern status, anychanges introduced to the vernacular by the encounter with modernity are auto-matically seen to represent cultural decline and a loss of authenticity. Thevernacular and the modern, it seems, cannot go together.

Still, Vellinga notes, many vernacular and modern traditions nowadaysdo merge, throughout the world, often in creative and unexpected ways. Thebuilding traditions that are the result of such amalgamations (such as, forinstance, the counter culture traditions discussed by Bronner, or modernized

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Introduction


replicas of traditional buildings) are nonetheless largely ignored in the field ofvernacular architecture studies because they are regarded as being not, or nolonger, truly or authentically vernacular. Yet to do so, Vellinga argues, is to denythe dynamic nature of building traditions and the application of meaning, andeffectively restricts the development of the field of vernacular architecturestudies. Calling instead for research that explicitly focuses on the way in whichvernacular and modern traditions merge, he proposes widening the vernacularconcept so that it includes all those buildings that are distinctive cultural expres-sions of people who live in or feel attached to a particular place or locality. Awarethat such a conceptualization ultimately makes the category of the vernacularredundant, he argues that it would help those building traditions that are nowcalled vernacular to get rid of the stigma of underdevelopment and a backwardpast, as such enabling them, as sources of architectural know-how, to assume anactive part in the provision of sustainable architecture for the future.

Part II: Learning from the vernacularMarchand and Vellingas assertion that vernacular traditions may have an importantcontribution to make to the development of sustainable future built environmentsis shared by most contributors to the book, and is elaborated upon in the chaptersin Part II. As a form of what in more general terms has usually been referred to as indigenous knowledge (Ellen, Parkes and Bicker 2000; Sillitoe, Bicker andPottier 2002), much may still be learned from vernacular know-how, skills andexperience. Of course this notion is not a fundamentally new one. As Afshar and Norton (1997) have summarized, there already exists a long-established,though still rather marginalized discourse that focuses on the ways in whichvernacular traditions may be integrated into contemporary building practices inorder to create more appropriate settlements and buildings. Now, at a time when concerns over sustainability and cultural identity continue to cast doubts overthe processes of modernization and globalization, and alternative approaches to development are increasingly being looked for, it seems more timely and urgent than ever to build upon the achievements of this research.

A concise history of the discourse dealing with the incorporation ofvernacular traditions in contemporary architectural practice is provided by Suhazkan in his chapter on, what he calls, the traditionalist approach to architecture.Reiterating briefly how the history of architecture may be written in terms of asuccession of periods in which theoretical, professional and aesthetic principlesare at first agreed upon and then challenged, he focuses in particular on the variousreactions that sprung up in response to the dominance of Modernism at the begin-ning of the twentieth century. Apart from, among others, post-modernism and thearchitecture of freedom movement, one of the most influential reactions, zkannotes, has been that of traditionalism. This movement, which seeks to advancethe integration of traditional skills and knowledge in contemporary building, hascontributed to the emergence of the multi-disciplinary field of vernacular architec-ture studies which, he writes, has managed to fill the biggest vacuum withinarchitectural theory and has been increasingly, though slowly, recognized in

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academia. Discussing briefly how this movement relates to some of the otherresponses to Modernism, zkan proceeds to discuss the work of some of its pro-ponents such as, notably, Hassan Fathy, Paul Oliver, the Development Workshopand CRATerre, all of whom have demonstrated how vernacular technologies,materials and forms may be applied in contemporary design.

Although zkan rightly notes that some of the work carried out bythese pioneers (including, famously, Fathys New Gourna project (Fathy 1973))has been only partially successful, he also states that in time, the followers ofHassan Fathy and Paul Oliver are destined to be successful. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, in a time of rapid ecological degradation, globalizationand the destruction of much vernacular architectural heritage, concerns for themaintenance of local cultural identities and an awareness of the need to providesustainable built environments are set to raise the interest in local vernaculartraditions and their advantages in terms of cultural and environmental appropri-ateness. Importantly though, zkan (echoing Marchand) notes that it is thecultural process of the transmission of traditions that needs to be looked at whenwe are considering the lessons that may be learned from the vernacular, ratherthan just the buildings or, what he calls, the physical shells of those traditions.

This latter assertion, which entails that it is the appreciation and suste-nance of vernacular knowledge, skills and experience that needs to be the focusof attention rather than the static preservation of actual buildings, also forms oneof the central tenets of Roderick Lawrences chapter. Discussing the way inwhich principles deduced from the vernacular may provide lessons to thoseinvolved in the contemporary provision of sustainable human settlements,Lawrence takes as an important starting point that it is unrealistic to consider anoptimal sustainable state or condition of vernacular buildings, or any larger humansettlement. Because the vernacular, like all human constructs, results from the active and dialectic interrelation between ecological and cultural factors, and seeing that these factors are de facto dynamic because of the continuousmutual influencing that creates ever changing conditions, vernacular architectureand settlements by definition have to adapt in order to be sustainable. Therefore,Lawrence argues, sustaining human settlements involves an understanding ofthe mechanisms and principles involved in these adaptive processes. Since therelationship between the natural and human environments is mediated throughknowledge, values, ideas and information, it is those aspects of a tradition,constituting a large warehouse of natural and cultural heritage, that can providelessons for future generations.

After a concise but useful discussion of the main, though sometimesconflicting interpretations of what sustainability is and a brief explanation of thepremises of a human ecology perspective on vernacular architecture, Lawrencesuggest a number of basic principles that may be applied in professional prac-tice to increase the sustainability of future buildings and settlements. Using thevernacular architecture of the Valais (Wallis) valley in Switzerland as a case studyto validate these principles, he stresses, among others, the need to consider eco-logical and cultural diversity, the importance of interrelations between different

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Introduction


geographical scales (e.g. building, town, nation), the value of participatoryapproaches to development, and the critical need to raise public awareness of theissues concerned. In discussing these principles, Lawrence, like many before him(e.g. Oliver 1969; Amerlinck 2001), stresses the desirability of an integrated,multi-disciplinary approach to the study of vernacular architecture and settle-ments. More specifically, he notes the need for studies that pay attention to thereciprocal relationships between the material and non-material aspects of build-ings, as well as for those that study actual social values and lifestyles to enableprofessionals and policy makers to predict and plan for social change.

A good example of a study that attempts to achieve this latter goalthrough the integration of a number of different disciplinary approaches andmethodologies is provided by Lindsay Asquith. Concerned with bringing togetherthe fields of vernacular architecture and housing (both of which currently assume amarginal position in architectural education and the architectural profession),Asquith notes how a vernacular approach to architecture that stresses the import-ance of intimate relationships between buildings and their inhabitants may con-tribute to the provision of the millions of homes that will be needed to house therapidly growing world population. Like Marchand and Vellinga, she notes that animportant condition for such a vernacular perspective to become a more urgentagenda point is that the vernacular is not seen as something static, but as con-stantly evolving, reacting to changes in the communities that shaped its form.Furthermore, she argues that the use and application of vernacular knowledgeneeds to become a more urgent topic of discussion, and that new methodologicalapproaches, combining tools from different disciplines, should be developed toassist housing research today and in the future. Research into housing needs, suit-ability and adaptability, Asquith argues, should not be the concern of developers,designers or architects only, but should be based on shared knowledge and shouldtake account of insights gained by anthropologists, sociologists and behaviouralscientists.

Asquith demonstrates the value of such an integrated approach withan example of research carried out in the UK (where, as she notes, an estimated200,000 houses need to be built every year to reach current demands). Using aunique and innovative combination of qualitative and quantitative researchmethods, integrating interviews, time diaries, spatial mapping and spatial config-uration diagrams, she shows how the influence of gender, age and time on theuse of space may be measured and mapped, and how interesting and sometimesunexpected conclusions may be drawn from this regarding the way in whichfamilies in the UK nowadays claim and use space in their homes. As she con-cludes, these conclusions can and should be incorporated into future housingdesign to ensure that newly built homes will be more acceptable and appropriateto their intended inhabitants, as such avoiding the problems associated withmass housing in the past.

Another example of how vernacular know-how may be successfullyapplied in the contemporary provision of housing is provided by Ian Davis in his dis-cussion of post-disaster housing practices. Briefly presenting some examples of


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the manifold post-disaster shelters proposed by legions of intrepid inventors, reliefofficials, architectural and industrial design undergraduates, and product manufac-turers, Davis observes that, though the efforts of these designers have often (butnot always) been motivated by humanitarian concerns, they have usually exclu-sively focused on the provision of protection from the elements. Failing to recog-nize local cultural constraints, local vernacular building traditions and, crucially, themany functions that housing performs apart from physical protection, such shel-ters, he notes, inevitably . . . appear to have more to do with the needs of thosewho generate the concepts and precious little with the harsh pressing shelterneeds of survivors of disasters who need far more than physical protection. As aresult, many such shelters never see the light of day or, when they do, fail to meetthe needs and wishes of the disaster survivors for whom they were intended.

Taking the tsunami that struck the coastal areas of Aceh, the Andamanand Nicobar Islands, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka in December 2004 as anexample of the bewildering array of key issues that surround the issue of shel-tering from extreme hazards, Davis shows how housing, anywhere in the world,has a variety of functions. These include physical protection as well as, forinstance, the storage of belongings and property, the provision of emotional secu-rity and privacy, a staging point for future action, and an address for the receipt ofservices. What is needed, he notes, is a more holistic approach to post-disasterhousing that recognizes all these functions of housing. Such an approach wouldlet survivors participate in the process of decision-making and reconstruction,allowing them to use their vernacular skills and knowledge, while at the sametime providing them with training to create safer buildings. Echoing, then, thearguments of Marchand, Davis stresses the needs for a process rather than aproduct approach to post-disaster housing, in which participants take centrestage in the efforts to reconstruct a built environment that will remain meaningfulthrough being rooted in tradition and place.

Exploring the ways in which different societies have evolved rationaland ingenious solutions to meet their housing needs and the lessons this mayoffer for professionals working in the field, Geoffrey Payne reiterates the pointthat vernacular knowledge may have a lot to contribute to the design of appropri-ate and sustainable housing and settlements. Although, as he notes, westernmodels of planning and design based on commercial land markets are penetrat-ing most parts of the world, societies throughout the world have developed a richdiversity of vernacular spatial languages and forms. Drawing upon practical andresearch experiences gained over a period of more than thirty years, Payne givesa number of examples of how such vernacular conceptions of space or systemsof governance and land management can and have been successfully integratedin the planning or upgrading of informal settlements. He also notes, though, thatby and large such integration is far from common, seeing that vernacular tradi-tions have all too often been stigmatized and regarded as backward, andconsequently been replaced by a half digested set of alien and largely inappro-priate values. Still, he shows, in those cases where local wishes and needs havebeen taken into account, the results have been encouraging and successful.

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Paynes focus on urban and informal settlements as manifestations ofvernacular traditions once more raises the issue, touched upon by Bronner andVellinga, of how the vernacular should be defined. Like Lawrence, Payne alsoreminds us of the fact that, in studying vernacular traditions, it is important tofocus on the way in which human settlements as a whole are organized and con-ceptualized, rather than on individual buildings only. The key challenge, he writes,for those involved in the field of (low-income) housing in the twenty-first centuryis to find ways of integrating the creative energy inherent in vernacular spatiallanguages and forms into the development programs that are aimed at planningnew settlements or at upgrading of existing ones. Like Lawrence and Asquith, hecalls for a more holistic and multi-disciplinary approach to housing that takes intoaccount the perspectives and approaches of different disciplines like planning,architecture, anthropology and economics, and emphasizes the importance oflocal participation. Fundamentally, and anticipating the chapters of Howard Davisand Latter, he identifies an important role in this respect for education which, incontrast to current practices, should seek to loosen academic and professionalboundaries rather than reinforce them.

Part III: Understanding the vernacularAs Payne notes, finding ways in which vernacular knowledge and expertise maybe integrated into contemporary building design and practice constitutes one ofthe main challenges of those involved in the field of vernacular architecturestudies in the twenty-first century. What is needed to enable such integration, itwould seem, is the disposal of the stigmas of underdevelopment, poverty and thepast that currently cling to the concept of the vernacular, as well as a greaterunderstanding and awareness among members of the academy, the architecturalprofessions, the media, policy makers and the general public of the characteris-tics and values of vernacular traditions. In order to achieve this, more researchand, especially, education is needed. Such research and education, as the chap-ters in Part III emphasize, should focus on issues of process rather than product,identifying general principles and concepts rather than basic facts and figures.Most importantly, it should be critical and actively engage the realities of thepresent, rather than remaining focused on the past.

The assumption that those involved in contemporary design may learnfrom the vernacular forms the starting point of Amos Rapoports chapter.Reiterating the need to look at vernacular environments rather than just buildings,Rapoport, echoing Lawrences notion of a warehouse of heritage, regards thevernacular as an unequalled, and only possible, laboratory with a vast range ofhuman responses to an equally vast range of problems such as climate change,resources depletion, cultural change and technological development. Studyingand analysing the dynamics, change, success and failure of these vernacularresponses will enable the identification of general principles and mechanismsthat may lead to important insights into the nature of design and, as such, mayprovide the lessons of use to those involved in the development of more sustain-able future environments. What is required for such lessons to be learned,


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though, is a move into, what Rapoport calls the next stage of vernacularresearch. So far, he notes, the field of vernacular studies has been in its naturalhistory stage, describing and documenting buildings, identifying their variety,classifying them and so on. However, in order for the vernacular to teach lessonsthat are relevant to the future, a more problem-oriented, comparative andintegrative stage that leads to explanatory theory needs to be entered.

One way in which this step may be taken, Rapoport suggests, is bylooking at vernacular design as a model system. Most developed in biology andbiomedical research, the use of model systems involves the use of one system(e.g. a fruit fly or a mouse) to study phenomena in another, apparently very differ-ent system (e.g. a human being). Briefly summarizing the use and role of modelsystems in biological research, he discusses how an approach that treats thevernacular as a model system for contemporary design may help to identify thegeneral principles and mechanisms that characterize the relationship betweenhumans and environments. Such mechanisms (including physiology, perception,meaning, cognition and culture) are constant, though differently expressed indifferent cultures, and provide the important lessons that may be learned fromvernacular design. Rapoports discussion of some of these mechanisms raisesmany questions and identifies many hypotheses and conceptual frameworks,illustrating that there is indeed still much research that can and needs to be done, while underlining that any useful lessons to be taught by the vernacular need to go beyond the simple copying of certain formal qualities of a romanticizedtradition.

An example of a study that tries to identify some constant, thoughdifferently expressed principles and concepts is provided by Ronald Lewcock.Starting from the premise that works of architecture are fundamentally concep-tual, Lewcock argues for the existence of certain mental models or generativeconcepts that act like archetypes and that explain some of the, sometimes unex-pected, similarities that can be found between forms of vernacular architecture inmany parts of the world, or between architectures of different time periods.Briefly discussing the recent work of cognitive scientists, many of whom arguethat the human capacity to form mental models is genetically programmed, heargues that concepts that have been developed in the mind using the emotionalconnections of memory, particularly those that are simple and strong, have thepotential to form the basis of an architectural or artistic expression. By establish-ing connections between ideas, emotions, forms and spaces, such generativeconcepts (which are the result of genetically produced and learned processes)give rise to particular architectural ideas that have the strength of archetypes andthat may either be common to all mankind, or belong more specifically to onesociety.

Drawing upon examples from places and periods as diverse asPalaeolithic Russia, Mycenaean Greece, eleventh-century India and contempo-rary New Guinea, Mali and Afghanistan, Lewcock attempts to demonstrate theexistence, sometimes in combinations, of certain generative concepts in vernac-ular architecture, including the cave, the hearth, the covered courtyard and the

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anthropomorphic analogy. What is more, he argues that the strength and persis-tence of these generative concepts, exemplified by their widespread occurrencein many historical and contemporary vernacular traditions, is likely to persist intothe twenty-first century, and can indeed also be traced in examples of modernarchitecture. Significantly, though, he notes that this persistence does not implythat the vernacular traditions concerned will not, or have never, changed. LikeBronner, Marchand and Vellinga, Lewcock stresses the point that tradition is aprocess in which innovation and precedent are dynamically combined and inwhich, as a result, change continuously takes place. What does remain the samethough, he argues, is the underlying presence in the tradition of the generativeconcept. Studying such concepts and their impact on building design, heconcludes, therefore is a promising area for future research.

A call for more research is also central to Isaac Meir and Sue Roafschapter. Discussing the performance of a number of generic house types commonaround the Middle East and the Mediterranean, they observe how many peoplewill point to the vernacular when they are asked which buildings will be mostresilient in the face of environmental change. Vernacular resources, technologiesand forms such as adobe, windcatchers or courtyards are generally seen to be well adapted to local climatic conditions and are therefore often considered asappropriate bases for environmental design. Still, Meir and Roaf note, suchassumptions are not always based on actual research, and the results in thosecases where monitoring of their performance has taken place have sometimesbeen contradictory. Justifying the continued use of vernacular traditions on thebasis of their perceived climatic advantages, or copying them for this reason assimple morphological emblems, therefore carries with it the danger of misunder-standing the underlying reasons for their evolution, and denies us the benefits ofre-interpreting (understanding) rather than re-using (copying) the technology.What is needed, they argue, are methods that enable us to systematically test theactual performance of vernacular traditions and generate an understanding of how they may be upgraded so as to provide truly sustainable buildings for the newmillennium.

Briefly discussing the results of a project carried out by British andIsraeli scholars and students, Meir and Roaf present examples of such methods,including in situ monitoring, infrared thermography and thermal and daylight sim-ulations. They show how the results of the project have been counter-intuitive inthe sense that the buildings did not all perform as well as generally assumed, andsuggest ways of improving their performance at realistic costs and with minimumauxiliary energy input. Meir and Roafs chapter reminds us that a romantic imageof the vernacular in which an inherent climatic suitability or superiority of mater-ials and form is assumed is not the way forward, nor is the straightforwarddocumentation of existing traditions enough. What is needed is research thatcritically tests the performance of vernacular traditions in the face of the chal-lenges of the twenty-first century. What is absolutely vital as well, they note, is asystem of education that teaches architecture students about the way in whichvernacular traditions relate to cultures and environments, and that in so doing will


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give them a better understanding of how buildings perform and may be improvedso as to make them more resilient and regionally appropriate.

The need for a new kind of architectural education that pays attentionto vernacular traditions and seeks to raise awareness and understanding of theways in which vernacular knowledge may be integrated with new technologiesforms the central argument of Howard Davis chapter. Given the unprecedenteddemand for new buildings, he writes, especially in the non-western world, thereis a need for the education of people who can help guide the complexities ofbuilding production in ways that lead to buildings that allow the life of people andtheir communities to flourish, and in ways that minimize negative environmentalimpacts. In line with Meir and Roaf, he argues that such an education shouldengage vernacular traditions in a critical way, taking what is valuable from thetraditions without shunning the application of advanced technologies to adapt thatwhich is not working. The result of such an approach will be vernacular buildingsthat, combining traditional and new elements, do not look like those that existedbefore the process of industrialization, but which will nonetheless emerge out of the lives of people and groups they belong to. Recalling the arguments ofBronner, Marchand, Vellinga and Lawrence that tradition is a process and thatcultural exchange between traditions has always taken place, he thus stressesthe need to dismantle the dichotomy of traditional and modern knowledge and, assuch, again raises the issue of how the vernacular should be defined.

The contemporary system of architectural education, Davis notes,which developed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries out of a variety ofapproaches, is not optimized to educate professionals in a way that may helpsuch new vernacular architecture to emerge. Assuming that professionalexpertise is better than vernacular knowledge, valuing theory over practice, andemphasizing the importance of star designers, it puts too much emphasis on therole of the architect. Instead, what is needed is a system which teaches studentsthat buildings are the result of building cultures which include many actors, noneof whom have complete responsibility for the decisions that need to be taken.Incorporating practice-based ways of learning and paying attention to the culturalcontext of building, such a new system will educate architects who recognize the diversity of roles within a building culture and understand that professionalexpertise needs to be separated from professional dominance.

A good example of a course that attempts to raise students aware-ness of the importance of vernacular architecture and in so doing hopes toeducate architects who are more sensitive towards the cultural needs and wishesof their clients, is discussed by Rosemary Latter. Noting that contemporarymodels of large-scale planning and iconic high-rise buildings may be appropriateto the global industries of banking, insurance and tourism, but do not address theneeds of local cultures, Latter writes that architects with knowledge of varyingcultural contexts will be in a powerful position to influence and advocate sensitively on behalf of [such] communities. Given the way in which vernaculartraditions dynamically relate to cultural identities and the environmental context,a knowledge and understanding of the vernacular architecture of the world

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can only be helpful in achieving the aim of producing more sensitive practitioners.An inter-disciplinary course that connects such fields as architecture, develop-ment practice, geography and anthropology should therefore be an essentialelement of architectural education in the twenty-first century, she argues, and willbe vital for architectural students in tackling the complexities of the world today.

Briefly summarizing the approach and curriculum of an existing post-graduate course in vernacular architecture, Latter offers a model of the kind ofeducation that such an inter-disciplinary and international course could provide.Combining lectures and seminars that focus on the philosophy, theory, anthro-pology and cultural geography of vernacular architecture with more practicalworkshops, field trips and live projects that encourage students to actually work with vernacular resources and technologies, and to make proposals for theconservation or regeneration of vernacular buildings or sites, an education in inter-national vernacular architecture allows students to develop disciplinary andprofessional skills that will enable them to approach contemporary global archi-tectural practice in a more sensitive way. [W]ith an increasingly globalized andindustrialized building industry Latter (echoing Meir and Roaf, and Howard Davis)concludes, architects will be in a better position to assist with planning andhousing issues, having had some education in vernacular architecture.

Vernacular architecture in the twenty-first centuryIn contrast to the strong and persistent academic, professional and popular asso-ciations of the vernacular with the past and underdevelopment, the contributorsto this book suggest that the knowledge, experience and skills of the vernacularbuilders of the world can still have an important contribution to make to the cre-ation of the sustainable settlements and buildings needed in the future. As Olivernotes in his Hepworth Lecture: Much can be learned from traditional builders,who willingly pass on their know-how and skills as they have in the past (Oliver1999: 11). As a large warehouse of know-how, the vernacular provides import-ant opportunities to adapt modern, global building practices to local cultural andenvironmental circumstances, as such enabling the creation of forms of architec-ture that are more appropriate and sustainable, and hence better equipped to facethe manifold challenges ahead. At the same time, though, those same vernacularbuilders may also have a lot to learn from the technologies, skills and knowledgecommon to contemporary, modern architectural practices. Confronted with theopportunities and problems generated by the process of globalization and withthe increasing impacts of environmental change, vernacular builders all aroundthe world will require new ideas and means to service their buildings in line withchanging cultural needs and desires, and to protect them from the growingimpacts of climate change and the increased risk of natural hazards.

It seems, then, that what is needed at the beginning of the newmillennium is an architectural perspective in which valuable vernacular know-ledge is integrated with equally valuable modern knowledge, so as to enable thedevelopment of settlements and buildings that are contemporary and modern,yet which build upon the chara

Documents

Vernacular Architecture in 21st.pdf