1.

Definitions of Vernacular architecture

The term vernacular was derived from the Latin word vernaculus ‘meaning domestic, native’

Meaning of the word Vernacular : the language or dialect spoken by the ordinary people in a
particular country or region.

Vernacular architecture: Architectural language of the Ordinary people.

Paul Oliver also offers the following simple definition of vernacular architecture "the architecture of
the people, and by the people, for the people".

F.L Wright described vernacular architecture as: Folk building growing in response to actual needs,
fitted into environment by people who knew no better than to fit them with native feeling.

"Vernacular Architecture comprises the dwellings and other buildings of the people. related to their
environmental contexts and available resources, they are customarily owner or community built,
utilizing traditional technologies All forms of Vernacular Architecture are built to meet specific
needs, accommodating the values, economies and ways of living of the cultures that produce them."
(Paul, 1997)

Because of this Vernacular architecture is a very open, comprehensive concept. It is in fact used as a
shortcut and a synonymous for several different practices, and theoretical stands in those practices.
These include primitive or aboriginal architecture, indigenous architecture, ancestral or traditional
architecture, folk, popular, or rural architecture, ethnic architecture or ethno-architecture, informal
architecture, the so-called "anonymous architecture" or "architecture without architects", and even
"non-pedigree" architecture. (Arboloda, 2006)

Difference between Monumental architecture and vernacular architecture

We may say that monuments-buildings of the grand design tradition-are built to impress either the
populace with the power of the patron, or the peer group of designers and cognoscenti with the clever-
ness of the designer and good taste of the patron.

The folk tradition, on the other hand, is the direct and unself-conscious translation into physical form
of a culture, its needs and values-as well as the desires, dreams, and passions of a people. It is the
world view writ small, the "ideal" environment of a people expressed in buildings and settlements,
with no designer, artist, or architect with an axe to grind.The folk tradition is much more closely
related to the culture of the majority and life as it is really lived than is the grand design tradition,
which represents the culture of the elite. The folk tradition also represents the bulk of the built
environment.

Know-how was shared by the precise identification of means and methods through the naming of parts
and processes. While it did not inhibit some measure of individualization of building details, for the
most part it fixed the nature of the building solutions to specific problems. The technology had been
tested through experience over time, and while the patterns of life remained constant and little
changing, the building type and technology remained constant also.

Construction by specialised guilds is not a characteristic of vernacular where all the necessary skills
and know-how are accessible to an individual and his family.

For the most part, vernacular shelter employs direct muscle power, and, through the use of tools,
muscle-assisted power, for most building production.
2. Classifications of Vernacular architecture
a. Nature of society:
• Permanent/ agrarian: More settled people with agrarian economies tend to build
shelter of a more permanent nature. When settling a new site for their garden plots
the Lambas of Zambia built first an inkunka village of conical, lean-to structures which
served them during the first season's planting and raising of pumpkins, maize wheat,
and sorghum. These were thatched and provided with bamboo doors before the
seasonal rains came while further temporary ututungu shelters were erected in the
garden sites from which the crops could be protected. After the first season a
permanent village of intanda dwellings was constructed to a plan that was determined
by the village headman and which precisely reflected the structure and relationships
of the clans.
• Nomadic / Semi nomadic: Shelters were mainly protection from the elements. They
were never 'home/ ". Such a building process was easily learned, used available
resources, produced a technologically unsophisticated dwelling, which yet served its
purpose, and was readily abandoned when it was no longer wanted. It was thus
responsive to the needs of a semi-nomadic people and represented little investment
of time, energy, or material.
b. Chronological
▪ Primitive / Border communities
There is no technical vocabulary. in terms of building this im- plies that everyone is
capable of building his own dwelling-and usually does. Trades are hardly
differentiated, and the average family has all the available technical knowledge. Any
member of the group can build the buildings which the group needs, although in many
cases, for social as well as technical reasons, this is done cooperatively by a larger
group. Since the average member of the group builds his own house, he understands
his needs an. requirements perfectly; any problems that arise will affect him
personally and be dealt with. There are, of course, prescribed ways of doing and not
doing things. Certain forms are taken for granted and strongly resist change, since
societies like these tend to be very tradition oriented. This explains the close relation
between the forms and the culture in which they are embedded, and also the fact that
some of these forms persist for very long periods of time. With this persistence the
model is finally adjusted until it satisfies most of the cultural, physical, and
maintenance requirements. This model is fully uniform, and in a primitive society all
the dwellings are basically identical.

▪ Pre industrial
When building tradesmen are used for construction of most dwellings, we may
arbitrarily say that primitive building gives way to preindustrial vernacular. Even in this
case, however, everyone in the society knows the building types and even how to build
them, the expertise of the tradesman being a matter of degree. The peasant owner is
still very much a participant in the design process, not merely a consumer; In
preindustrial vernacular the accepted form still exists, thus offering a way of arriving
at a definition of vernacular by looking at the "design process. The vernacular design
process is one of models and adjustments or variations, and there is more individual
 variability and differences than in primitive buildings; it is the individual specimens
that are modified, not the type. What remains to be determined are the specifics-
family requirements (although this is also less variable than is true today), size
(depending on wealth), and relation to the site and micro-climate.

▪ Post industrial / Modern /Contemporary

c. Materials used:
o Using traditional materials
o Urban vernacular using available materials

d. Functionality
❖ Residential
❖ Farm related
❖ Industrial/work spaces
❖ Place of Workship

e. Settlement wise
➢ Urban
➢ Rural

3. Determinants of vernacular architecture: Role determinants in the creation of vernacular

FACTORS INFLUENCING VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE

1. Climate
2. Topography
3. Defence from animals and predators
4. Economic base of the community
5. Materials
6. Construction techniques
7. Culture and tradition of a society
8. Customs and beliefs
9. Lifestyle of the people
10. Historical background of the region
11. Foreign invasion

Protection from the climate, the need for privacy, defence from animals and predators, a base for
subsistence, the making of the home these and many other individual and social factors bear upon the
nature and form of different kinds of vernacular architecture. From the utilization of spaces to the
symbolic expression of beliefs, buildings embrace the values of specific cultures, accounting in part for
their differences in scale, organization, execution, and embellishment.
 4. Learning from Vernacular architecture and its relevance.
1. One reason is that these houses, being the direct expression of changing values, images,
perceptions, and ways of life,
2. Cross cultural comparisons: Need for different housing and settlement patterns for different
cultures, Insight into the basic nature of shelter and the process of meeting these basic needs.
3. Sustainability, energy efficiency
4. Can be built by the people with their skills, problem to housing shortage
5. These unique structures best suited to its context ensures Identity of a place
6. Best suited to the climate and geography of a place
7. Inspiration from vernacular architecture in contemporary architectural design.

The high style buildings usually must be seen in relation to, and in the context of, the vernacular matrix,
and are in fact incomprehensible outside that context, especially as it existed at the time they were
designed and built. we must look at the whole environment in order to understand it, and it is in this
sense that we must study the history of built form. If we look at only the smallest part of the work,
that part tends to assume undue importance; if we look at it in isolation, we cannot grasp its complex
and subtle relation to the vernacular matrix with which it forms a total spatial and hierarchic system.
Neglect of the vernacular buildings which form the environment has had the effect of making the latter
seem unimportant; it is consequently neglected physically and constantly deteriorates.

We may nurture romantic notions about the technological qualities, even the superiority, of vernacular
architecture but we shall learn little, and do-little useful service to the advancement of building, if we
are not also aware of its weaknesses, even its failure.

Those that claim that vernacular methods, materials, buildings and know how are "better" do so out
of respect for them and the wish to see their merits recognized. We are aware that vernacular
architecture and the means whereby it has been built is under threat in a great many societies. We
have witnessed the thoughtless destruction of many traditional buildings, the censure of architects
and planners who wish to "modernize" and who are wedded to the idea that Western building forms
and technology are applicable in all climates and cultures. We know that inappropriate housing has
been mindlessly inflicted upon countless numbers of people in the name of modernity, and we are all
too aware that traditional skills are in decline, that Western building types reflect status, and that
vernacular architecture in the eyes of many, is "backward" and "undeveloped”

5. So what role have we to play?

Exposure to the media, to urban values and urban hardware, even to the field-work of researchers in
material culture contributes to the conflicts of standards with which a vernacular society has to
contend. There is much to shake its confidence and little to support its own value systems. With the
confusion that this provokes, traditional know-how is easily discarded. Yet it is clear that there is a
world shortage of housing, that the materials, the skills, the financial expenditure necessary to meet
it by "modern" means simply do not exist. It is also evident, though by no means always acknowledged,
that Western methods of building in industrialized countries in temperate climates are often quite
inappropriate to the needs of other cultures and in very different climates. The technological merits of
vernacular traditions do need to be studied and understood, the extent of vernacular know-how does
demand to be examined and recognized. But little is gained by romanticism or special pleading, and
nothing is gained by overlooking the limitations, the defects, the structural and climatic failures of
vernacular means while striving to document the success. Therefore, in today’s architectural practice
vernacular traditions should be respected and whatever is suited to the current context should be
conserved or taken forward in terms of methods, materials and structures.
As professionals in material culture studies, we have the special advantage of access to communication
and the know-how of varied cultures. We are in a position, as the traditional builder often is not, of
seeing his building types in the context of others built by comparable cultures in comparable physical
conditions. With the knowledge to which we have access and with the advantages of mobility,
comparative data, and the means of information exchange, we are in a position to assist in the sharing
of technological know-how. For those who are facing difficult adjustments necessary in a period of
cultural change; for those who have been subjected to fragmentary exposure to modern technology
but who are still deprived of the basic necessities of shelter and services; for the victims of natural and
man-made disasters who have seen their homes disintegrate; for those who are ciphers in a statistical
survey and are numbers to be housed in a planning scheme; for all these and more we should surely
have something to offer.

References:
1. Oliver, P. (1986). Vernacular Know-How. Material Culture, 18(3), 113–126.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/29763778
2. Amos Rapoport (1969), House, Form & Culture, Prentice Hall Inc.