Design And The Vernacular

Design and the Vernacular explores the intersection between vernacular architecture, local cultures, and modernity and globalization, focussing on the vast and diverse global region of Australasia and Oceania. The relevance and role of vernacular architecture in contemporary urban planning and architectural design are examined in the context of rapid political, economic, technological, social and environmental changes, including globalization, exchanges of people, finance, material culture, and digital technologies. Sixteen chapters by architects designers and theorists, including Indigenous writers, explore key questions about the agency of vernacular architecture in shaping contemporary building and design practice. These questions include: How have Indigenous building traditions shaped modern building practices? What can the study of vernacular architecture contribute to debates about sustainable development? And how has vernacular architecture been used to argue for postcolonial modernisation and nation-building and what has been the effect on heritage and conservation? Such questions provide valuable case studies and lessons for architecture in other global regions -- and challenge assumptions about vernacular architecture being anachronistic and static, instead demonstrating how it can shape contemporary architecture, nation building and cultural identities.

Defines a set of strategies for understanding the complexities of a regional setting and, through a series of international case studies, examines how architects and designers have applied a variety of tactics to achieve culturally and environmentally appropriate design solutions.

What is the connection between the elite world of avant-garde architectural design and the 'ordinary' everyday buildings which most of us inhabit in our daily lives? Architecture and the Vernacular explores the troubled borders between architectural design and the everyday world. In contrast to the view widely-held in architectural circles, this book argues that there has always been a constant flow of ideas in both directions between the world of 'designed' architecture, of icons and big-name architects on the one hand, and the world of ordinary, anonymous buildings on the other. Whether rural vernacular buildings, shotgun shacks, shanty towns, suburban housing, or edge-of-town retail barns - these typologies may have been marginalized, but they have been far from mute in the formation of architectural discourse. Providing an accessible examination of the key academic questions and debates concerning the relationship between architecture, the vernacular, and the everyday, this book is also a powerful argument for a new way of thinking about the making of buildings and the practice of architecture. Many of the issues addressed go right to the heart of the identity crisis that architecture faces in the twenty-first century: What is architecture? What defines an architect? And what can architects and designers learn from the everyday world around them?

The architectural community has had a strong and continuing interest in traditional and vernacular architecture. Lessons from Vernacular Architecture takes lessons directly from traditional and vernacular architecture and offers them to the reader as guidance and inspiration for new buildings. The appropriate technical and social solutions provided by vernacular and traditional architecture are analysed in detail. International case studies focus on environmental design aspects of traditional architecture in a broad range of climatic conditions and building types.

Sustainable design requires that design practitioners respond to a particular set of social, cultural and environmental conditions. 'Vernacular Architecture and Regional Design' defines a set of strategies for understanding the complexities of a regional setting. Through a series of international case studies, it examines how architects and designers have applied a variety of tactics to achieve culturally and environmentally appropriate design solutions. • Shows that architecture and design are inextricably linked to social and environmental processes, and are not just technical or aesthetic exercises. • Articulates a variety of methods to realise goals of socially responsible and environmentally responsive design. • Calls for a principled approach to design in an effort to preserve fragile environments and forge sustainable best practice. 'Vernacular Architecture and Regional Design' will appeal to educators and professional practitioners in the fields of architecture, heritage conservation and urban design. Dr. Kingston Wm. Heath is Professor and Director of the Historic Preservation Program at the University of Oregon. Previously he was Professor of Architecture at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte where he taught seminars on vernacular architecture and regional design theory. He holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and Brown University. In addition to numerous articles in scholarly journals, he is the author of Patina of Place, and winner of the Abbott Lowell Cummings Award from The Vernacular Architecture Forum for excellence in a scholarly work. He has earned an international reputation in the field of vernacular architecture and has directed field schools in Italy and Croatia.