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Vernacular Architecture by Cynthia Falk LAST REVIEWED: 26 February 2020 LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2020 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190922467-0017

Vernacular architecture refers to both a subject of study and a way of approaching that subject. Vernacular architecture studies emphasize the connections between the built environment and the people who interact with it, reflecting on the two-way nature of those relationships. People, sometimes known by name and sometimes anonymous, plan and erect buildings, but physical spaces also influence how groups and individuals use them. With this in mind, students of vernacular architecture often ask “why” questions, and they are likely to be interested in the entire life cycle of a building, its surroundings, and its interiors rather than just the moment of creation and exterior appearance. The scholarship on vernacular architecture contrasts with more typical architectural history in that it is concerned with the everyday. Ordinary buildings, landscapes, and interiors—the type of things that don’t often attract much attention—are its primary focus. The formal study of vernacular architecture is a relatively new pursuit. While interest in old buildings goes back centuries, it was really in the 1970s that the field developed its current trajectory. In the works that follow, architect-designed buildings are the exception rather than the rule. In terms of methodology, the unifying approach—regardless of type, date, or construction—involves fieldwork, which can mean documenting buildings and spaces through photography and the creation of measured drawings, as well as documenting the human experience through oral history and ethnographic methods. Documentary sources also play an important role in the study of vernacular architecture, especially when the subject involves the more distant past. The study of vernacular architecture is multidisciplinary. The authors of the following books, articles, and websites come from a variety of academic backgrounds, including art history, history, folklore, anthropology, archaeology, cultural geography, architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning, among others. Some teach in the academy, but others work at museums and historic sites, cultural resource management firms, historic preservation offices, and other governmental entities. In North America, the Vernacular Architecture Forum (VAF) is the preeminent organization for the study of vernacular architecture. The VAF traces its roots, in part, to a similar organization, the Vernacular Architecture Group (VAG), which was established in England in 1952 with a focus on the British Isles.

Studies in vernacular architecture tend to focus on specific places and groups, as vernacular expressions are often localized and fieldwork as a methodology lends itself to a tight geographic and/or cultural focus. As a result, general overviews are limited, and those that exist tend to focus on the definition and importance of vernacular architecture and approaches to its study. The VAF published Invitation to Vernacular Architecture ( Carter and Cromley 2005 ), which provides the closest thing to a textbook on the subject. Upton 1998 offers a national narrative in Architecture in the United States , although more examples are drawn from the East Coast, cities in the Midwest, and California than other parts of the country, as is typical of the field. Henry Glassie, while focusing on the United States in his volume Vernacular Architecture ( Glassie 2000 ), adds comparative international material based on his long career studying folk culture around the world. While more dated and slimmer, the edited book American’s Architectural Roots: Ethnic Groups that Built America ( Upton 1986 ) introduces readers to various building traditions brought to the United States by immigrant groups.

Carter, Thomas, and Elizabeth Collins Cromley. Invitation to Vernacular Architecture: A Guide to the Study of Ordinary Buildings and Landscapes . Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2005.

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The first book in VAF’s special series, this volume addresses what vernacular architecture is and how it can be studied, using a Buffalo, New York, house from 1906 as the primary case study. The volume stands up well as for use in the classroom, although the section on photography has become dated due to the rise of digital imagery.

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Glassie, Henry. Vernacular Architecture . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.

This text was published as a stand-alone volume and as part of Glassie’s larger volume Material Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999). It uses Glassie’s lifetime of global experience in folk studies to demonstrate what can be learned through vernacular architecture in chapters such as “Materialization,” “Composition,” “History,” and “Patterns in Time.”

Upton, Dell. Architecture in the United States . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Upton includes thematic chapters on community, nature, technology, money, and art in this book, which is about the various stories that buildings can tell. While the volume includes analysis of some very well-known architect-designed buildings, its approach is not limited to aesthetic appreciation. Additionally, Upton aims to capture diversity among Americans, a trend that would only grow in the years after this volume was published.

Upton, Dell, ed. America’s Architectural Roots: Ethnic Groups that Built America . Washington, DC: Preservation, 1986.

This volume mirrors the popular guidebook What Style Is It? A Guide to American Architecture , (John C Poppeliers, S Allen Chambers, and Nancy B Schwartz. New York: Wiley, 1983) but shifts the focus from the aesthetic features of buildings to characteristics that link buildings in the United States to traditional buildings in other parts of the world. From a 21st-century perspective, the entries may oversimplify ethnic difference and processes of cultural change, but as an introduction they remain valuable.

Reference works in the field of vernacular architecture tend to be place based. The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) publishes the series Buildings of the United States, which currently includes twenty-four monographs on various states, regions within states, and cities. The series began in the early 1990s and continues with additional volumes. While historically SAH has been criticized for its lack of attention to vernacular places, many books in this series incorporate everyday buildings in addition to more noteworthy landmarks. The Vernacular Architecture Forum provides reference works in the form of the guidebooks prepared for annual meetings. Guidebooks are typically not formally published but can often be found in regional library collections.

Society of Architectural Historians. Buildings of the United States series. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.

This series of monographs, coordinated by the Society of Architectural Historians and authored by experts on various geographic regions, includes titles on cities such as New Orleans, Pittsburgh, and Savannah; states such as Alaska, Delaware, and Iowa; and portions of states such as Tidewater Virginia and Piedmont Virginia or eastern and western Pennsylvania. Volumes include entries on individual buildings keyed to maps, as well as black and white photographs. A complete list of titles can be found online .

Vernacular Architecture Forum. Annual Meeting Guidebooks.

The Vernacular Architecture Forum organizes tours in conjunction with annual meetings held in different parts of North America and the Caribbean. Guidebooks prepared for those tours, which offer text, maps, and photographs, serve as important reference sources for each site. Informally published, these “white papers” can be difficult to locate, but a limited number are readily available online .

While the journals of the VAF and VAG are published specifically on the topic of vernacular architecture (see Journals ), practitioners in the field publish in a wide variety of serials. Anthologies have reprinted some of the classic articles available on vernacular architecture from publications that cover a wider variety of topics. Upton and Vlach 1986 offers an early example of this genre, while Mooney 2014 is a more recent follow-up reprinting articles from the journal Winterthur Portfolio .

Mooney, Barbara Burlison, ed. Vernacular America: Architectural Studies from Winterthur Portfolio . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.

The subject of Winterthur Portfolio , published by the University of Chicago Press for Winterthur Museum, is material culture, of which vernacular architecture is a subset. This anthology includes articles on topics ranging from earthfast buildings in the colonial Chesapeake to mail order houses of the Victorian period to World War I–era hostess houses. It is recommended as a course reader.

Upton, Dell, and John Michael Vlach, eds. Common Places: Readings in American Vernacular Architecture . Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1986.

This edited volume features articles from academic journals, excerpts from monographs, and chapters from museum publications highlighting the cutting edge scholarship in vernacular architecture in the 1980s. There is a strong focus on the East Coast, as was common in the field at that time. Much of the material was seminal at the time, although more recent work has often built on and updated interpretations.

The VAF for decades published the Vernacular Architecture Newsletter (VAN) in printed form before transitioning to an electronic format in 2014. As a printed newsletter, VAN included a bibliography as a regular feature. Those newsletter bibliographies still provide useful information, despite the fact they are hard to come by and hard to search when found. In the digital age, VAF’s bibliography has transitioned to an online format. The VAG also provides a more limited online reading list.

Vernacular Architecture Forum bibliography .

The VAF’s bibliography includes over 2,500 entries and is available online through a Zotero public group.

Vernacular Architecture Group recommended readings .

Rather than a bibliography, VAG offers a recommended reading list for those new to the field, which includes approximately thirty titles on vernacular architecture, primarily of Great Britain, ranging from classic texts from the mid-20th century to newer monographs, journal articles, and online resources.

As vernacular architecture is a multidisciplinary field, articles about it can be found in a wide variety of journals. Serial publications that are devoted specifically to the subject are published by the VAF and VAG.

Buildings & Landscapes . 2007–

VAF adopted this title in 2007 to replace Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture . Starting as an annual, publication of two issues per year began in 2009. Articles are peer reviewed and drawn from within and outside VAF membership. The focus is on North American topics although subjects from outside North America appear occasionally. In addition to research articles, the journal also publishes viewpoints, research notes, object lessons, and reviews.

Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture . 1982–2006.

Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture began as proceedings of the annual meetings of the VAF, which were published once every two years. Later volumes were more thematic and included subtitles such as Gender, Class, and Shelter (1995) and People, Power, Places (2000). The publication became an annual journal, with submissions no longer coming solely from annual meetings, beginning in 2004 with Volume 11. This publication can be accessed by subscription through JSTOR online .

Vernacular Architecture . 1971–.

Published by the Vernacular Architecture Group since 1971, this refereed journal includes articles on vernacular architecture from around the world, although historically the focus has been on the British Isles. Also included are the results of dendrochronology and book reviews.

Traditional architectural history has often focused on style. The study of vernacular architecture has prioritized other considerations, including context, use, and materials. Students of vernacular houses have long argued for the importance of floor plans over decorative features. Glassie 1975 makes this case in the author’s seminal volume Folk Housing in Middle Virginia , while Hubka 2013 more recently reiterates the importance of floorplans in Houses without Names . By focusing on floor plans, circulation patterns and room use can be better understood.

Glassie, Henry. Folk Housing in Middle Virginia: A Structural Analysis of Historic Artifacts . Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1975.

Inspired by the structuralism of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Glassie charts the unspoken rules of average house building in Goochland and Louisa Counties in Virginia in the era before 1920. Perhaps the most significant volume in the field of vernacular architecture, the book incorporates theory and fieldwork to interpret changes in mindset based on concurrent changes in building design, such as open to closed plans and natural to artificial materials.

Hubka, Thomas C. Houses without Names: Architectural Nomenclature and the Classification of America’s Common Houses . Knoxville: University of Tennessee, 2013.

Hubka argues that most buildings, especially average houses, lack the aesthetic features to classify them by architectural style. Instead of style, Hubka proposes that houses can be best understood through an analysis of room arrangements and circulation patterns. He further explains how the exterior of a house provides clues to its interior arrangement.

Vernacular architecture is a place-based field. Fieldwork as a methodology requires extensive observation of local conditions, and as a result much vernacular architecture scholarship addresses universal issues while examining particular places. Focus has shifted over time. Initially, many students of vernacular architecture focused on rural places. As the field developed, cities and urban life became more common subjects of inquiry. In both cases, emphasis was often on the past, usually the colonial and early national periods of the British North American colonies and the United States. In the best cases, these studies of old buildings inform, or informed, issues of contemporary importance. More recently, attention has shifted to the 20th century and to the new types of everyday environments that have emerged, especially in the suburbs. Another change in the study of American vernacular architecture has been geographic. The field developed in two regions, New England and the Chesapeake, in both cases with a focus on early American architecture of the colonial period. As time has passed, interest in the everyday built environment has embraced both newer buildings and buildings in other parts of the country and the world. While there remains a heavy emphasis on the East Coast, English-language studies now address all parts of North America and the Caribbean, as well as Great Britain. Vernacular architecture scholarship on other parts of the world is more limited but continues to grow.

In its earliest phases in the 1970s, the study of vernacular architecture in the United States was concerned primarily with rural places where architect-designed buildings were unknown and changes in agricultural production left many older buildings without a use and therefore under threat. This focus followed patterns in England where farmhouses and farm buildings were likewise subjects of study in a rapidly changing landscape. Much of that early documentation in the United States went unpublished, but by the 1980s, monographs began appear, including books on New England ( Hubka 1984 ) and Delaware ( Herman 1987 ). While urban and suburban places have received more attention of late, rural landscapes, especially on the East Coast, continue to be the subject of inquiry. Gregory Huber updated John Fitchen’s classic 1968 volume on Dutch barns ( Fitchen and Huber 2001 ). Falk 2012 and McMurry 2017 address New York and Pennsylvania farm buildings, respectively. McMurry 2017 follows on the author’s earlier study, McMurry 1997 , which uses farmhouses to understand farm families, thus incorporating the study of gender into the study of the built environment.

Falk, Cynthia G. Barns of New York: Rural Architecture of the Empire State . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012.

Falk provides a synthetic resource on farm buildings in the state of New York from the first Dutch and English settlements through the 20th century. Organized by uses, the book includes structures ranging from chicken houses to dairy barns to windmills.

Fitchen, John, and Gregory D. Huber. The New World Dutch Barn: The Evolution, Forms, and Structure of a Disappearing Icon . 2d ed. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2001.

John Fitchen first published The New World Dutch Barn in 1968. This revised and expanded edition includes a new introduction with new illustrations, both photographs and plans, and it updates other information even adding to the checklist of barns, which serves as an appendix. The book is strong in its explanations of the distinctive construction of Dutch barns and how construction techniques changed over time.

Herman, Bernard. Architecture and Rural Life in Central Delaware, 1700–1900 . Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987.

While Herman includes barns and other farm buildings in this volume about southern New Castle County in Delaware, his work is especially strong in its analysis of rural house types based on floor plans, finishes, and construction. The volume provides a processor to The Stolen House ( Herman 1992 , cited under Regional Studies: Mid-Atlantic ), which provides a more detailed analysis of a single household.

Hubka, Thomas. Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn: The Connected Farm Buildings of New England . Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 1984.

Hubka asks the question, why did New England farmers connect their houses to their outbuildings and their barns? He challenges the popular answer of cold climate and deep snow focusing instead on progressive agricultural reform of the late 19th century.

McMurry, Sally Ann. Families and Farmhouses in Nineteenth-Century America: Vernacular Design and Social Change . Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997.

McMurry looks to farmsteads, especially farmhouses, to understand the dynamics of progressive agriculture in the 19th century. Based heavily on published articles from the agricultural press, this book traces a period of architectural change in the rural north and places the farm family, including women and children, squarely at the center of the transformation.

McMurry, Sally Ann. Pennsylvania Farming: A History in Landscapes . Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh University Press, 2017.

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Drawing from data collected for the state-wide Pennsylvania Agricultural History Project, McMurry divides Pennsylvania into geographical regions based on historical farming patterns. The bulk of the book addresses the periods of 1830–1910 and 1910–1965 and uses buildings as tools to understand larger agricultural processes.

If the study of vernacular architecture began with the study of rural buildings, it soon blossomed to include cities and urban building types. Rather than focus on the rich and powerful inhabitants of cities, those studying vernacular architecture have instead illuminated the lives of the working class, immigrants, and servants through their studies of apartments ( Cromley 1990 ), residential hotels ( Groth 1994 ), and alley houses ( Hayward 2008 ). Residential alternatives to the single-family, owner-occupied house have dominated studies, as shown in one of the earliest monographs in this vein, Manhattan for Rent ( Blackmar 1989 ). Much of the literature has taken a historical approach to building types, tracing patterns in the United States to the 18th or 19th century. Herman 2005 uses transatlantic comparisons of early town houses, for example, to investigate the history of cities and their inhabitants across class and geographic boundaries.

Blackmar, Elizabeth. Manhattan for Rent, 1785–1850 . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.

Focusing on the history of renters and their landlords in New York City in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Blackmar challenges the narrative of abundant property ownership. The buildings that Blackmar’s subjects occupied rarely have survived the ravages of time, but her use of documentary sources helps bring the spaces to life in a book that is largely about more intangible concepts of class, labor, and government.

Cromley, Elizabeth. Alone Together: A History of New York’s Early Apartments . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.

As its subtitle suggests, Cromley’s book is about New York City apartment buildings from their beginnings in the mid-19th century through the early 20th century. The book includes visual representations and numerous floorplans that help establish how urban space could be organized for multifamily living. Cromley seeks to capture the sometimes elusive concerns of the families who occupied these spaces as well as those responsible for their creation.

Hayward, Mary Ellen. Baltimore’s Alley Houses: Homes for Working People since the 1780s . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.

Hayward organizes her study of urban low-income housing based on the racial and ethnic groups that populated it: African Americans both before and after the Civil War, Irish, Germans, and Bohemians. Her focus is on the small houses that line the alleys that divide Baltimore’s city blocks, and her goals include promoting the preservation of these buildings.

Herman, Bernard L. Town House: Architecture and Material Life in the Early American City, 1780–1830 . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.

This book takes the reader up and down the eastern seaboard and across the Atlantic Ocean in its analysis of urban living at the turn of the 19th century. Chapters, which stand well individually, focus on different groups of people, from merchants to slaves, shipwrights to widows. There is a strong emphasis on not only the marginalized but also on mobility, with separate consideration of travelers and German immigrants.

Groth, Paul. Living Downtown: The History of Residential Hotels in the United States . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

While the term hotel may conjure thoughts of travel and transient use, Groth exposes the residential use of hotels from the early 19th century through 1980. The book is divided into four sections, the latter three of which divide hotels into categories based on quality and price—opulent, mid-priced, and marginal. Many examples are drawn from San Francisco.

While the field of vernacular architecture emerged from a concern about how old buildings can be used to better understand the past, it has shifted to include more recent aspects of the built environment. Some scholars have taken a historical approach, emphasizing the rise of new forms, while others have focused on lessons to be learned in the present from places created in the very recent past. Housing has been a major focus, with the rise of suburban landscapes occupying much attention. Additionally, commercial environments, from main streets to motels to strip malls, have become subjects of investigation and scrutiny. As 20th-century places age, issues related to their preservation have also risen to the fore.

In the 20th century, housing patterns shifted as people moved from cities to the suburbs, where they embraced pastoral ideals and took advantage of new forms of transportation. Jackson 1985 introduces the subject, including post World War II suburbs, in Crabgrass Frontier . That volume was followed more recently by books such as Jacobs 2015 and Lane 2015 , which offer greater historical perspective on the postwar building of average single-family houses in subdivisions. While much scholarship has focused on the United States, Harris 1996 examines the prewar period in Toronto, Canada, and Cupers 2014 looks at post–World War II France. Aside from suburban single-family houses, other works have addressed alternative residential types, including Lasner 2012 on condos.

Cupers, Kenny. The Social Project: Housing Postwar France . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014.

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In the aftermath of World War II, a varied combination of French government leaders, professionals, and citizens looked for new ways to meet housing needs. Cupers explores their motivations, influences, and legacy as he charts their proposed solutions, which transformed the French countryside. For students of American suburbs, the books provides a useful comparison.

Lasner, Matthew Gordon. High Life: Condo Living in the Suburban Century . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.

While much literature on housing in the 20th century has focused on single-family houses, Lasner shifts the emphasis to another new housing model, the condominium. In exploring jointly owned, multifamily complexes in the 19th and especially the 20th century, Lasner draws examples from throughout the country—Florida, New York, and California.

Harris, Richard. Unplanned Suburbs: Toronto’s American Tragedy, 1900–1950 . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Harris’s study focuses on working-class suburbs of the early 20th century around Toronto, Ontario. The houses in these outlying areas were largely built by their owners and were made possible by a lack of building regulation. Owners might take in boarders as a way to use their homes to supplement their income. The places Harris documents provide a telling contrast to more familiar post–World War II suburbs.

Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States . New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Jackson’s landmark study charts the long history of suburban development in the United States from the late colonial period though the creation of subdivisions in the second half of the 20th century. The book examines motivating factors from streetcars to federal subsidies to racial discrimination. Jackson ultimately concludes that the trend toward suburbanization was faltering at the time he was writing in 1985 and the future would look different.

Jacobs, James. Detached America: Building Houses in Postwar Suburbia . Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 2015.

Jacobs presents a three-part model to describe the evolution of suburban houses built between 1945 and 1970: minimalist, designed for toward casual living, and zoned. Jacobs offers a national picture, and he uses published floor plans to develop his conclusions.

Lane, Barbara Miller. Houses for a New World: Builders and Buyers in American Suburbs, 1945–1965 . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015.

Lane examines twelve housing developments outside Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. Her work is especially strong in her attention to the preferences of home buyers, some of which are documented in an appendix that includes interviews with owners and their children.

Commercial Spaces

By the late 1960s, both design professionals and historians of the built environment turned their attention to 20th-century commercial architecture. Changes in transportation, particularly the rise of the automobile, affected not only residential patterns but also commercial ones. Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour published the results of a graduate seminar at Yale in their trailblazing book Learning from Las Vegas ( Venturi, et al. 1977 ), which called on designers to take lessons from everyday roadside architecture. Inspired by their work, Chester Liebs further explored roadside architecture through his history of building types such as drive-ins and supermarkets, no longer limiting the study of roadside buildings to the iconic Vegas strip ( Liebs 1985 ). Continuing in this tradition, other works explore new building types more specifically, including Jakle, et al. 1996 on motels and Longstreth 1997 on retail environments, while Esperdy 2008 looks into how older spaces of main street were updated. Longstreth 2015 , Looking Beyond the Icons , also includes religious, educational, and cultural spaces and calls for informed preservation of vernacular 20th-century buildings.

Esperdy, Gabrielle. Modernizing Main Street: Architecture and Consumer Culture in the New Deal . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.

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Focusing on the 1930s, Esperdy examines how older storefronts were updated with new materials, signage, and even color to embrace the modern aesthetics of the era. Esperdy’s work is informed by national architectural trade journals and was inspired by New York City, but it embraces main streets in towns and small cities across the United States, concluding with a case study of Reading, Pennsylvania. While about commercial buildings, the book uses architecture as a lens to explore public policy and consumer culture, as well as extruded aluminum sash and international style facades.

Jakle, John A., Keith A. Sculle, and Jefferson S. Rogers. The Motel in America . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

This co-authored volume, written by a historian and two geographers, traces the evolution of lodging geared toward travelers using automobiles. The study starts with traditional downtown hotels, moving on to mom-and-pop–owned motor courts and eventually corporate franchises. The book concludes with a case study of motels in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jakle and Sculle have co-authored other volumes on hotels, gas stations, service garages, and the preservation of roadside architecture.

Liebs, Chester H. Main Street to Miracle Mile: American Roadside Architecture . Boston: Little, Brown for New York Graphic Society, 1985.

In his volume devoted to architecture designed to be appreciated from an automobile—what he calls “speed-reading”—Liebs begins with main street but quickly moves on to the roadside strip. Much of Liebs’s volume is occupied by an exploration of various building types, including gas stations, supermarkets, drive-in movie theaters, restaurants, and motels. The book is well illustrated with black-and-white photographs of roadside buildings and includes a sixteen-page color insert.

Longstreth, Richard. City Center to Regional Mall: Architecture, the Automobile, and Retailing in Los Angeles, 1920–1950 . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997.

Using Los Angeles as a case study, Longstreth explores commercial architecture during the second quarter of the 20th century. Longstreth charts the shift in retail from the downtown core to the periphery, which paralleled the expanded use of automobiles. Given the LA context, he includes some unusual twists, like the creation of Hollywood, that provide a more place-specific 20th-century narrative.

Longstreth, Richard. Looking Beyond the Icons: Midcentury Architecture, Landscape, and Urbanism . Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015.

Longstreth examines the everyday architecture of the recent past through this volume, which includes everything from shopping centers to religious buildings to housing developments. The volume addresses the legacy of urban renewal and the preservation of midcentury buildings and landscapes.

Venturi, Robert, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form . Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977.

In their landmark 1972 publication of the same title, the authors reported the findings of a 1968 study of the Las Vegas strip and called on fellow architects to pay more attention to common commercial landscapes such as A&P parking lots. This revised edition abridges the original, keeping Part 1, the description, and Part 2, the analysis, which introduces the concepts of the “duck” and “decorated shed”—two different approaches to incorporating symbolism in architecture.

The documentation of patterns in the built environment and the recognition of differences are both important components of vernacular architecture studies. Distinct regional trends have thus been the subject of many works. Scholars explain why this place is different from that place or how ideas spread across space and time. Given the origins of the field in the United States on the East Coast, the New England and Chesapeake regions are best represented in regional studies, although slowly scholarship has embraced other regions as well.

New England

Three works mark the beginning of vernacular architecture studies of early New England: The Framed Houses of Massachusetts Bay ( Cummings 1979 ), A Little Commonwealth ( Demos 2000 ), and New England Begins (edited by Jonathan L. Fairbanks and Robert F. Trent. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1982), which includes a seminal essay on domestic and agricultural architecture by Robert Blair St. George. All three arose within the context of public history. Framed Houses brings together decades of fieldwork undertaken by Abbott Lowell Cummings as part of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, now Historic New England. In A Little Commonwealth , first published in 1970, John Demos uses a new social history approach to better understand families in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The first third of the book focuses on the physical setting, drawing on research being done for Plimoth Plantation. New England Begins: The Seventeenth Century , an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, was accompanied by a monumental three-volume catalogue featuring essays by noted scholars, including St. George who writes on vernacular architecture. While all of these studies focused on the earliest buildings in the region, other works expand both the geography and scope. Hubka 1984 , Heath 2001 , and Garrison 2006 all turn their attention to the 19th century, using different lenses. Hubka writes about a regionally distinct building type, the connected domestic and agricultural buildings found on interior New England farms. Heath 2001 shifts attention to the industrial landscape of textile mills and their surrounding communities, not only as they existed when first developed, but also as they changed over time. And Garrison examines the buildings and practices of two generations of the Stearns family, who worked in Northfield, Massachusetts.

Cummings, Abbott Lowell. The Framed Houses of Massachusetts Bay, 1625–1725 . Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1979.

A landmark book in vernacular architecture studies, Framed Houses synthesizes Abbott Lowell Cummings’s work through the 1970s on early Massachusetts housing of the 17th century. In addition to text, the book is a must have for the detailed drawings of wood frame construction.

Demos, John. A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony . 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

First published in 1970 and grouped with the community studies genre of the new social history, Demos’s work differed in that it included a strong focus on material goods, including buildings (the first chapter is entitled “Housing”) and was tied to new interpretation at the outdoor museum Plimoth Plantation. This revised edition, published in 2000 to mark the book’s thirtieth anniversary, includes a new foreword but is otherwise unchanged.

Garrison, J. Ritchie. Two Carpenters: Architecture and Building in Early New England, 1799–1859 . Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006.

Two Carpenters builds on the trend toward micro-history, exploring building practices in New England in the first half of the 19th century through a careful analysis of the lives of two generations of the Stearns family using both documentary records and surviving buildings.

Heath, Kingston Wm. The Patina of Place: The Cultural Weathering of a New England Industrial Landscape . Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2001.

Focusing on New Bedford, Massachusetts, Heath examines the creation of the landscape of textile mill towns, including the “triple decker” multifamily house. Among the book’s contributions is the term “cultural weathering,” which refers to the effect of people on a particular place.

Hubka expands the New England canon by focusing on the 19th century as well as interior and northern New England. As his title suggests, he focuses on connected domestic and agricultural buildings positing that this distinct regional tradition grew from agricultural reform.

St. George, Robert Blair. “‘Set Thine House in Order’: The Domestication of the Yeomanry in Seventeenth-Century New England.” In New England Begins: The Seventeenth Century . Vol. 2. Edited by Jonathan L. Fairbanks and Robert F. Trent, 159–183. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1982.

St. George uses an analysis of the landscape, buildings, and interiors of early farmsteads to better understand their occupants’ changing worldviews. He sees in the differentiation of spaces—buildings and rooms—a movement toward artifice and order. The essay appeared in a catalogue accompanying the exhibition New England Begins at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. St. George’s essay on “Mentality and Environment” is in Volume 2; it has been reprinted in the anthology Common Places (see Upton and Vlach 1986 , cited under Anthologies ).

Mid-Atlantic

The literature on colonial vernacular architecture initially focused on New England and the Chesapeake region, both of which saw fairly homogenous European settlement. The mid-Atlantic offers a place to explore the role of ethnicity in the creation of distinctive, regionally specific buildings. Pennsylvania particularly, with its large 18th-century Germanic population, provides an opportunity to examine the role of cultural difference as it relates to architecture. Pendleton 1994 , Falk 2008 , and McMurry and Van Dolsen 2011 , are all aimed at better understanding Pennsylvania German people through their buildings. Lanier 2005 , a study of the Delaware Valley, which includes New Jersey and Delaware as well as southeastern Pennsylvania, describes the area as a region of regions. Lanier and Herman 1997 likewise examines a variety of building types and locations from throughout the southern portion of the region. Much of the scholarship on mid-Atlantic vernacular architecture in recent years has its roots at the University of Delaware. With this in mind, some works, such as Herman 1992 , have focused on Delaware itself, using a very local example as a way to better understand the built environment more broadly.

Falk, Cynthia G. Architecture and Artifacts of the Pennsylvania Germans: Constructing Identity in Early America . University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008.

Falk questions the premise of whether ethnicity created the major cleavage among 18th-century Pennsylvanians or rather was one of several aspects of personal identity that set people apart. Using houses and other buildings as evidence, she argues that social and economic status, as well as religious convictions, created material divides among people of German and English descent.

Herman, Bernard. The Stolen House . Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992.

Herman demonstrates the meaning that can be teased from a series of events related to the settlement of the estate of Jacob Christopher, who died in 1784 in Sussex County, Delaware, and accusations by family members against Christopher’s wife’s new husband about stolen property. The book is based largely on documentary sources yet argues for the primacy of material culture in understanding the past.

Lanier, Gabrielle M. The Delaware Valley in the Early Republic: Architecture, Landscape, and Regional Identity . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.

Based on case studies in New Jersey, Delaware, rural Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia, Lanier uses the built environment to contrast the early Delaware Valley with New England and the Chesapeake region. She tracks localisms that are derived from ethnic traditions, religious background, familial connections, and land productivity to demonstrate the diversity of the people and vernacular architecture in the area.

Lanier, Gabrielle M., and Bernard L. Herman. Everyday Architecture of the Mid-Atlantic: Looking at Buildings and Landscapes . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.

Designed as a primer on how to “read” buildings, this book focuses on the portion of the mid-Atlantic between southern New Jersey and the eastern shore of Virginia. Likening architectural fieldwork to archaeology, Herman and Lanier share their combined experience looking at, analyzing, and interpreting the built environment with a goal of encouraging the preservation of old buildings.

McMurry, Sally, and Nancy Van Dolsen, eds. Architecture and Landscape of the Pennsylvania Germans, 1720–1920 . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.

Derived from material collected for the 2004 meeting of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, this volume includes seven chapters by various authors on religious, commercial, domestic, and agricultural buildings, as well as the urban and rural landscape. Unlike many volumes on the Pennsylvania German landscape, which focus almost exclusively on the colonial years, this book takes its content into the early 20th century.

Pendleton, Philip E. Oley Valley Heritage: The Colonial Years, 1700–1775 . Birdsboro, PA: Oley Valley Heritage Association, 1994.

Pendleton undertakes a detailed study of one place—the Oley Valley in what is now Berks County, Pennsylvania—through chapters on land, economy, architecture, religion, and community. Although only one chapter is devoted specifically to architecture, the built environment permeates the entire volume through photographic images and descriptions.

Scholarship on the southern United States falls into two categories, that about the Chesapeake region of Maryland and Virginia, which tends to focus on the colonial period, and that on places further west and south. For the Chesapeake, studies have been driven largely by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Virginia and the St. Mary’s City Commission in Maryland. In both cases, the desire to interpret the early Chesapeake to a public audience has led to questions about why the built environment in Maryland and Virginia, where only a few 17th-century and early 18th-century buildings survive, is so different from that further north in New England, where extant early buildings are more prolific. A multidisciplinary group of scholars published “Impermanent Architecture in the Southern Colonies” in 1981 in Winterthur Portfolio and began offering an explanation by describing earthfast building techniques (construction directly on the ground or with wooden members placed in holes or trenches) and the reason for their use. The subject continued to be explored, bolstered by decades’ more fieldwork, in Carson and Lounsbury 2013 . Carl Lounsbury, formerly of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, has been among the leading writers on the topic of southern architecture. In addition to the 2013 co-edited volume on the Chesapeake house, he has contributed to Architects and Builders of North Carolina ( Bishir, et al. 1990 ), edited An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and Landscape ( Lounsbury 1994 ), and authored a monograph on early Virginia courthouses ( Lounsbury 2005 ). Camille Wells, who with Lounsbury was a founder of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, adds to the literature on southern colonial architecture with her volume Material Witness ( Wells 2018 ), which addresses plantations in the 18th century as well as more recently as they have been interpreted for the public. Michael Ann Williams, a folklorist who places a strong emphasis on oral narrative, puts people at the center of her study of Appalachia, which also emphasizes the complete life cycle of its subject buildings. Williams 1991 emphasizes traditional approaches and ideas that inform more contemporary building practices and uses.

Bishir, Catherine, Charlotte Brown, Carl Lounsbury, and Ernest Wood III. Architects and Builders in North Carolina: A History of the Practice of Building . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990.

This expansive volume of over five hundred pages explores the architecture of North Carolina through a careful analysis of builders and building practices. The authors cover the period from the 17th century through the second half of the 20th century in chapters ordered chronologically. The book is complimented by the website North Carolina Architects & Builders , which includes biographical accounts of those working in the state’s building trades.

Carson, Cary, Norman F. Barka, William M. Kelso, Garry Wheeler Stone, and Dell Upton. “Impermanent Architecture in the Southern American Colonies.” Winterthur Portfolio 16.2–3 (1981): 135–196.

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The authors analyze earthfast buildings built directly on the ground or with wooden posts in holes that predominated in the colonial Chesapeake region. They explain that it took demographic balance, social stability, new crops, new markets, and a new world view to promote the development of more permanent housing. This article is reprinted in Material Life in America: 1600–1860 , edited by Robert Blair St. George, 113–158 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988).

Carson, Cary, and Carl R. Lounsbury, eds. The Chesapeake House: Architectural Investigation by Colonial Williamsburg . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013.

This edited volume brings together the work of multiple scholars and the data from fieldwork conducted over decades to provide a synthetic understanding of housing in the early Chesapeake region. The book includes sections on methodology, design and use, materials, finishes, and change over time. While houses are the focus, agricultural buildings are not forgotten, and the material realities of a labor system built on slavery are also addressed.

Lounsbury, Carl R., ed. An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and Landscape . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Literally a glossary, this book offers invaluable assistance to anyone working with early documents about southern architecture of the 17th through the early 19th century. And, while it is undoubtedly place specific, much can be applied to any architecture of the contemporary English-speaking world. Entries typically include dated period references showing how a word was used.

Lounsbury, Carl R. The Courthouses of Early Virginia: An Architectural History . Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005.

Lounsbury’s book is about more than just courthouses, although they are certainly the main focus. Lounsbury is interested in what architecture communicates about civic life and justice in early Virginia. As such, he also documents prisons, taverns, and courthouse grounds. The book project commenced when the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation undertook the restoration of a courthouse interior, and it serves as a model for research on a specific category of building.

Wells, Camille. Material Witness: Domestic Architecture and Plantation Landscapes in Early Virginia . Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2018.

Wells combines the history of the architecture of Virginia’s plantations with the history of their preservation and restoration in the twentieth century as places like Colonial Williamsburg and Monticello became public historic sites. Her coverage includes not just individual buildings, but also the larger plantation landscape and the smaller details of interiors. Informed by decades of fieldwork, the book includes well know sites as well as those that have seen less attention.

Williams, Michael Ann. Homeplace: The Social Use and Meaning of the Folk Dwelling in Southwestern North Carolina . Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1991.

Williams focuses on the tangible and intangible elements of folk housing in this study of domestic architecture in Appalachia. The book is divided into five main chapters, three of which focus on house plans: single pen, double pen, and center passage. The fifth offers some of the most interesting insight as it discusses, based on oral testimony, changes in attitudes about traditional houses and the eventual abandonment of them.

The Gulf Coast, particularly Louisiana and especially New Orleans, has warranted its own detailed studies. Since Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, New Orleans has garnered special attention in the field of vernacular architecture, in large measure because of the great loss and preservation issues the storm created. Verderber 2009 , for example, documents the everyday built environment, much of which was damaged or lost as a result of the hurricane and calls for preservation and rebuilding. But even before Katrina, the Mississippi Delta’s history as a cosmopolitan port, influenced by French, Spanish, and English colonial regimes, made it a region unto itself. And the remarkable presence of the Mississippi River has provided a subject for those studying the relationship between land, water, and built form. Rehder 1999 explores the legacy of sugar production on Louisiana plantations, while Kelman 2003 captures the long relationship between the Mississippi River and the city of New Orleans, in what today seems like an ominous foretelling of what was to come.

Kelman, Ari. A River and Its City: The Nature of Landscape in New Orleans . Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

Kelman approaches the built environment through the lens of environmental history. Rather than focus on buildings, he charts how the very landscape has been manipulated over time to meet human needs.

Rehder, John B. Delta Sugar: Louisiana’s Vanishing Plantation Landscape . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

Rehder offers six case studies of sugar plantations in Louisiana, as well as chapters laying out a broad history of sugar production in the region. A cultural geographer, Rehder contextualizes plantation buildings within a larger, and increasingly disappearing, landscape of agricultural production.

Verderber, Stephen. Delirious New Orleans: Manifesto for an Extraordinary American City . Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009.

Verderber’s book is unusual among the volumes included in this bibliography in that it offers limited text and abundant photographs. Published after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, the volume documents the commercial landscape that made up the city. Images are labeled with date and time charting a landscape that has been forever changed.

Southwest and California

The literature on the vernacular architecture of the Southwest, including California, has tended to focus on how the history of the region has been interpreted and reinterpreted over time. Wilson 1997 looks particularly at Santa Fe, New Mexico, with an eye to how the built environment has been used to create a past only partially born in reality. In turning her attention to California missions, Kryder-Reid 2016 likewise examines the public interpretation of the past with particular attention to the place of race in the heritage field. The diversity of groups that have called the southwest home, from Pueblo and Diné (Navajo) people, to Spanish and Mexican settlers, to Americans from the East Coast makes this a region ripe for the exploration of various building traditions.

Kryder-Reid, Elizabeth. California Mission Landscapes: Race, Memory, and the Politics of Heritage . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016.

California’s missions have become icons. Kryder-Reid charts their evolving history, from religious spaces designed to convert Native peoples to heritage tourism sites that capitalize on a fascination with Native and Hispanic culture. The book is especially strong in its inclusion of landscape features such as gardens, which provide a more complete understanding of the built environment.

Wilson, Chris. The Myth of Santa Fe: Creating a Modern Regional Tradition . Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997.

Wilson divides his monograph into two parts: one about the history of Santa Fe through the early 20th century and the second about the creation of a tourist destination based on that imagined history. Buildings and landscapes—old, new, and somewhere in between—play a prominent role in this characterization of the city over time.

Mexico and Caribbean

Folklorists such as Henry Glassie have long conducted fieldwork in and written about locations outside the United States. For the Caribbean, Berthelot and Gaumé 1982 , a trilingual catalogue, marked the beginning of a movement to examine the everyday buildings that resulted from the colonial context of the West Indies. The recent move to embrace globalization, both past and present, has resulted in significant new works. For example, Nelson 2016 explores the architecture of the British Empire in Jamaica, and Edgerton 2001 examines colonial missions in Mexico. Both books focus on the past and are closely tied to studies of similar subjects and, therefore, buildings in the continental United States. Other works take a more contemporary approach; for example, Lopez 2015 examines the complex interchange of ideas and resources through remittances that flow from the United States to Mexico. Global studies, still grounded in particular places at particular times, have broken new ground in the field of vernacular architecture and likely demonstrate a trend that will only continue to grow.

Berthelot, Jack, and Martine Gaumé. Kaz antiyé jan moun ka rété/Caribbean popular dwelling/L’Habitat populaire aux Antilles . Guadeloupe: Éditions Perspectives Créoles, 1982.

With text in French, Creole, and English, this book provides an examination of vernacular architecture, particularly housing, in the West Indies (Antilles) with a strong emphasis on islands that were once French colonies. The authors liken buildings to language, both of which in these creole societies incorporated elements of European and African origin in a distinct colonial context.

Edgerton, Samuel Y. Theaters of Conversion: Religious Architecture and Indian Artisans in Colonial Mexico . Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001.

Edgerton explores the churches and convents of colonial Mexico from the 16th and 17th centuries with an eye toward the interactions between Spanish religious leaders and indigenous people. Sites in New Mexico are included in his study, which is beautifully illustrated with photographs by Jorge Pérez de Lara as well as line drawings.

Lopez, Sarah. The Remittance Landscape: Spaces of Migration in Rural Mexico and Urban USA . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.

Lopez asks her readers to rethink migration, immigration, and its relationship to place in this volume, which documents contemporary material connections between Mexico and the United States. She shows how money earned in the United States and sent to family in Mexico has changed the built environment there but also how the practice of coming to the United States to work has altered the material landscape of US cities.

Nelson, Louis. Architecture and Empire in Jamaica . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016.

Nelson undertakes a study of Jamaican colonial architecture paying careful attention to the environments created and endured by those of African descent as well as those designed and occupied by the white population. In this well-illustrated volume, Nelson offers a truly global picture, demonstrating connections among British, African, and Caribbean built environments.

Scholarship on the vernacular architecture of Canada has followed two distinct paths. One vein has led to the exploration of distinct, often remote, places where traditions of the past are still remembered if not enacted. Pocius 1991 , for example, takes a folkloristic approach to the author’s own home place of Newfoundland, focusing on the community of Calvert. Mellin 2003 , influenced by Pocius, provides a thorough examination of Tilting, an island community off the coast of Newfoundland. In both cases, fishing serves as a primary occupation, and therefore the authors address vernacular landscapes related to the water. Other scholars of the Canadian built environment have turned their attention to urban areas, particularly in the 20th century. Two studies of Toronto, The Ward ( Loring, et al. 2015 ) and Unplanned Suburbs ( Harris 1996 ), tackle the common North American phenomenon of suburbanization and urban renewal. Yet in each case the Canadian perspective offers a new angle. In Harris 1996 , the focus is shifted from well planned, middle-class suburbs to the working-class periphery settlements of the early 20th century, which were characterized by a lack of regulation and planning. In The Ward , numerous authors work to provide a robust pre-urban renewal picture of this immigrant community.

Harris, Richard. Unplanned Suburbs: Toronto’s American Tragedy, 1900–1950 . Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

While the creation of suburbs within the United States has been well documented, Harris shifts the focus north to Canada in this examination of early 20th-century building practices. His analysis focuses on the working-class, self-built suburbs created outside Toronto, bringing light to a type of community that has escaped much attention anywhere in North America.

Loring, John, Michael McClelland, Ellen Scheinberg, and Tatum Taylor, eds. The Ward: The Life and Loss of Toronto’s First Immigrant Neighbourhood . Toronto: Coach House Books, 2015.

This edited volume includes more than five dozen short essays on various aspects of life in what came to be considered Toronto’s most notorious slum. The familiar tale of urban renewal is supplanted by rich stories and numerous illustrations of life in this diverse community prior to its destruction in the 1950s. While many sections focus on people, several highlight the specific places that punctuated the neighborhood.

Mellin, Robert. Tilting: House Launching, Slide Hauling, Potato Trenching, and Other Tales from a Newfoundland Fishing Village . New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2003.

This book documents a careful study, begun in 1987, of the community of Tilting on Fogo Island off the coast of Newfoundland. Mellin explores both domestic forms and building types related to work, especially fishing and agriculture. His rich narrative of the continuation and adaptation of tradition in this remote part of the world is complemented by imagery of the built environment in Tilting and direct quotations from the people who informed his study through interviews.

Pocius, Gerald L. A Place to Belong: Community, Order and Everyday Space in Calvert, Newfoundland . Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1991.

Pocius’s monograph focuses on Calvert in the Canadian Maritime province of Newfoundland. The book addresses Calvert both in the past and present, focusing on spaces related to production, especially fishing, and consumption. Conducting fieldwork beginning in the 1970s, Pocius found Calvert to be a place still grounded in tradition but with new elements of modernity gaining ground, especially in the form of material culture.

The study of vernacular architecture may initially seem to be about places, from specific buildings to whole cityscapes. However, in practice, those who focus on everyday places often do so to better understand the people who occupy them. In the field of vernacular architecture, buildings become a means by which to appreciate people, not just architects and moneyed owners, but also craftspeople, laborers, family members, renters, squatters, janitors, and other service providers. The types of buildings highlighted in the section on Urban Spaces , from alley houses to residential hotels, demonstrates the inclusiveness. Common places give voice to common people. Increasingly vernacular architecture studies have focused on underrepresented groups, including people of color, LGBTQ individuals, children, and religious minorities.

Given that the study of vernacular architecture has often focused on the colonial period in the United States, the enslavement of Africans and people of African descent has been a critical topic almost from the start. The differences between how white and black Virginians viewed the cultural landscape and built environment was the subject of Upton 1985 , a seminal article on race and space. Vlach 1993 further documents the landscape of racialized slavery and the experience of enslaved people. Works like these have initiated reinterpretation for public audiences, particularly at historic sites that once facilitated and benefited from slave labor. While studies from the 1980s and 1990s often examine race through the lens of slavery in the American South, more recent works recognize the need to temporally move beyond the Civil War and/or geographically expand borders. Schein 2003 , an essay in the edited volume dedicated to J. B. Jackson, raises issues of the “normative” and how racial discrimination has been embedded in the built environment. Upton 2015 returns to the topic of race to examine the building of monuments to commemorate the civil rights movement and African-American history. Other authors have taken a more international approach. Ginsburg 2011 examines domestic service in South Africa during the period of apartheid. And, Louis Nelson carefully reconstructs the experience of capture and enslavement along Africa’s Gold Coast under British rule in the 17th and 18th centuries. While much of the literature has focused on how space has been used to oppress and discriminate, there are hints that place and the experience of it can also be liberating, one of the major themes in the earlier literature on slavery. When scholars have returned to the subject of enslavement more recently, for example in two edited volumes Ellis and Ginsburg 2010 and Ellis and Ginsburg 2017 , they have likewise emphasized the interrelationship between space and resistance, documented a diversity of experiences, and expanded geographic coverage.

Ellis, Clifton, and Rebecca Ginsburg, eds. Cabin, Quarter, Plantation: Architecture and Landscapes of North American Slavery . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.

This edited volume includes a mix of reprinted essays as well as new scholarship, making it an ideal course reader. Among the former is W. E. B. DuBois’s “The Home of the Slave” (1901) and Dell Upton’s “White and Black Landscapes in Eighteenth-Century Virginia” ( Upton 1985 ). New work addresses topics such as escape, life in the quarters, change over time, and interpretation today. Attention is paid to documenting the experience and agency of enslaved people.

Ellis, Clifton, and Rebecca Ginsburg, eds. Slavery in the City: Architecture and Landscapes of Urban Slavery in North America . Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017.

While much literature on vernacular architecture related to slavery has focused on plantation landscapes, this edited volume specifically explores how slavery was enacted in urban places. Its authors explore locations such as Charleston, South Carolina, and Annapolis, Maryland, but also more diverse sites from Texas to Tennessee to cities in the north. Each essay demonstrates the centrality of the built environment in understanding the experience of enslaved people.

Ginsburg, Rebecca. At Home with Apartheid: The Hidden Landscapes of Domestic Service in Johannesburg . Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011.

Ginsburg’s work focuses on the suburban landscape of Johannesburg, South Africa, during the period from roughly 1960 to 1975. There, black female African domestic workers labored in a system of oppression based on race as well as gender. Interviews as well as architectural evidence inform this study, which sheds light on the interplay of space and racial divides.

Nelson, Louis. “Architectures of West African Enslavement.” Buildings & Landscapes 21.1 (2014): 88–125.

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Nelson expands notions of vernacular architecture in this article by addressing not only the permanent “castles” that Europeans erected on Africa’s Gold Coast to facilitate the slave trade but also temporary constructions and uses of the landscape to disempower African slaves before the Middle Passage began.

Schein, Richard H. “Normative Dimensions of Landscape.” In Everyday America: Cultural Landscape Studies after J. B. Jackson . Edited by Chris Wilson and Paul Groth, 199–218. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

Schein takes a broad look at the built environment to better understand how historic patterns continue to shape contemporary practices tied to racial inequality. Among his case studies are slave markets, redlined neighborhoods, segregated black suburbs, confederate statues, and public parks.

Upton, Dell. “White and Black Landscapes in Eighteenth-Century Virginia.” Places 2.2 (1985): 59–72.

Upton contrasts the way wealthy white planters viewed the plantation landscape with the perceptions and experiences of enslaved blacks and poor whites. He argues that movement through space, including buildings, and distinct black communities provided ways to usurp the official white landscape. This article is also reprinted in Material Life in America: 1600–1860 , edited by Robert Blair St. George, 357–369 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988) and in Cabin, Quarter, and Plantation ( Ellis and Ginsburg 2010 ).

Upton, Dell. What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015.

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Upton returns to the topic of race in the southern United States to examine the trend to commemorate the history of the civil rights movement and African-American achievements through monument building. While Upton addresses older Confederate memorials, his primary subjects are the structures erected more recently to recognize African-American contributions and what can be learned from them about race and memory in the American South today.

Vlach, John Michael. Back of the Big House: The Architecture of Plantation Slavery . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.

Vlach’s groundbreaking study focuses on plantation architecture beyond the mansion that is normally the focal point. He incudes chapters on slave quarters, overseers’ houses, kitchens and other domestic buildings, agricultural buildings, and even hospitals. The study is informed by Vlach’s own field research as well as Historic American Buildings Survey documentation.

Readings about the Spanish colonial legacy on vernacular architecture in the United States can be found in the section of this bibliography devoted to the Southwest and California (see Regional Studies: Southwest and California ) These geographic areas have long seen the imprint to Hispanic culture on the physical landscape. A different strain of scholarship explores the contributions of more recent Latinx migrants to the built environment of the United States. The focus is often urban; Rojas 2003 addresses East Los Angeles while Sandoval-Strausz 2013 draws many conclusions from Chicago examples. Lopez 2015 demonstrates the transnational effects of Mexican migration on the physical forms associated with work in the United States and remittances send back to family in Mexico.

Lopez offers an analysis highlighting the interdependence of people and buildings in the United States and Mexico. She demonstrates how money earned by Mexican migrants in the United States has been used in rural Mexico to alter both private and public spaces. Likewise, she analyzes how Mexican workers in US cities have affected the urban landscape north of the border.

Rojas, James. “The Enacted Environment: Examining the Streets and Yards of East Los Angeles.” In Everyday America: Cultural Landscape Studies after J. B. Jackson . Edited by Chris Wilson and Paul Groth, 275–292. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

Rojas focuses on the vernacular landscape in his study of East LA, making the case for outdoor spaces as important components of Latinx communities. Focusing on physical forms like fences and porches, consumables and portable goods, and, most important, the people who populate yards, streets, and stores, Rojas asks his readers to think beyond the box of the building to understand neighborhoods and their inhabitants.

Sandoval-Strausz, Andrew K. “Viewpoint: Latino Vernaculars and the Emerging National Landscape.” Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum 20.1 (2013): 1–18.

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A precursor to a larger book project, this article asserts the important role Latinos have played in shaping the urban landscape throughout the United States, especially in cities. In the case study presented in this article, Sandoval-Strausz responds to the book Heat Wave by Katie MacAlister, Jennifer Archer, and Sheridon Smythe (New York: Dorchester, 2003) about the 1995 weather event in Chicago to explain how specific elements of the built environment, coupled with distinctive cultural practices, helped Latinos survive the high temperatures.

While the construction trades have long been dominated by men in the Western world, most buildings are not exclusively male or female spaces. The emphasis on housing in the field of vernacular architecture means that shared spaces are often the subject of analysis. In the 1990s, scholars began asking questions about gender, specifically about the role of women in the creation, maintenance, and adaption of space. Kwolek-Folland 1995 confronts students of American vernacular architecture in the field’s preeminent journal, Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture , calling for more inclusive building histories. McMurry 1997 rises to the challenge by examining the role of women on farms, sometimes considered traditionally male work spaces. Since that time, authors have recognized that the study of gender is not limited to the study of women but should also examine concepts of masculinity and should call out heteronormative assumptions. Murphy 2009 , for example, offers an innovative study of homosexual and queer space.

Kwolek-Folland, Angel. “Gender as a Category of Analysis in Vernacular Architecture Studies.” In Gender, Class and Shelter . Edited by Elizabeth Collins Cromley and Carter L. Hudgins, 3–10. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995.

Kwolek-Folland calls for a reevaluation of how vernacular architecture is studied, emphasizing the role that gender should play in any analysis of place. This short article addresses classics in the field of vernacular architecture such as Holy Things and Profane ( Upton 1986 , cited under Religion ) and the essay “Set Thine House in Order” ( St. George 1982 , cited under Regional Studies: New England ) by demonstrating how closer attention to the role of women could augment interpretation.

In analyzing farmsteads in the northern United States during the 19th century, Sally McMurry brings farmwives to the fore as productive workers, caregivers for their children, and designers of the spaces they occupied.

Murphy, Kevin D. “‘Secure from All Intrusion’: Heterotopia, Queer Space, and the Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century American Resort.” Winterthur Portfolio 43.2–3 (2009): 185–228.

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Focusing on New England, Murphy interprets the preservation of historic buildings and the furnishing of spaces with artifacts of the past as the activities of people who operated outside normative heterosexual relationships of resort culture. Murphy applies Foucault’s concept of heterotopia to further explain the creation of places such as Henry Davis Sleeper’s Beauport.

The buildings and other environments created for children are increasingly becoming the subject of scholarly analysis. Children have long shared the built environment with other members of their families, sometimes creating—or having created for them—spaces of the own. With the establishment of children’s institutions such as hospitals, schools, playgrounds, and even McDonald’s playlands, children’s places have taken on a life of their own in more recent times. Gutman and Coninck-Smith 2008 includes all of these components of the built environment in the edited volume, Designing Modern Childhoods (2008). Van Slyck, whose essay on summer camps is included in that volume, develops a full monograph on the topic ( Van Slyck 2006 ), which demonstrates the importance of considering children’s environments as a distinct category.

Gutman, Marta, and Ning De Coninck-Smith, eds. Designing Modern Childhoods: History, Space, and the Material Culture of Children . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008.

Developed from a conference at the University of California at Berkeley in 2002, this edited volume includes essays divided into sections on health, education and play, inequity based on race and class, and consumption and the media. While multiple essays focus on children’s experiences in the United States, about a third of the volume addresses other parts of the world, allowing for comparison across cultures and places.

Van Slyck, Abigail Ayres. A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890–1960 . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.

Van Slyck uses the experience of summer camp to analyze changing ideas about childhood, work, health, cleanliness, gender, nature, and even Native Americans among white Americans in the late 19th and 20th centuries. She demonstrates though the architecture and broader landscape of various camps how children’s experience was shaped through the setting.

Students of vernacular architecture have found the intersections between religious belief and tangible form to be irresistible. Religious spaces, of all places, provide the prefect avenue to explore how deep-seated convictions are physically manifest. And, religious buildings have the potential to embody difference as much as they do sameness, especially considering the religious plurality of North America. Studies of vernacular religious buildings have up until this time largely focused on Christian groups: Congregationalists, Anglicans, Catholics, and Mormons. Like other subfields within the study of vernacular architecture, the focus has been on the colonial East Coast with a few jaunts further afield. Upton 1986 offers a pioneering study on early Virginia’s Anglican parishes, demonstrating that church buildings can say as much about nonreligious affairs, such as social stratification, as they do about the sacred. In Edgerton 2001 the interactions between European Catholics and indigenous Mexican groups take priority and help the reader understand the form and decoration of conventos . For the Mormons, Carter 2014 shows the construction of settlements in Utah was about advancing both spiritual and secular concerns. Those who study religious buildings draw on a wide variety of sources. Benes 2012 , for example, focuses on the earliest meeting houses in New England, the majority of which do not survive. Benes therefore has to turn to documentary and visual sources. Buggeln 2005 examines a slightly later period when New Englanders in Connecticut torn down their early buildings and replaced them with new edifices, many of which still dot the landscape. Here the surviving buildings, in addition to numerous written documents, help inform the study. In examining suburban churches of the 20th century, Buggeln is able to additionally add interviews to her source base for her 2015 volume. In using religious buildings to understand the culture of the people who used them, having access to the spoken or written word is an important adjunct to the buildings themselves. As scholars continue to probe the meaning of these types of spaces, incorporating more and different faith communities, as in the edited volume American Sanctuary ( Nelson 2006 ), they will benefit from the use of such rich and varied source material.

Benes, Peter. Meeting Houses of Early New England . Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012.

Benes undertakes a study of meetinghouses, which served both religious and community functions, in New England before 1830. The bulk of the book is devoted to a chorological examination of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. Benes also offers useful insight on builders, seating patterns, and nonreligious uses of the buildings, which rarely survive today.

Buggeln, Gretchen. Temples of Grace: The Material Transformation of Connecticut’s Churches, 1790–1840 . Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2005.

Studying the period after the American Revolution, Buggeln places church architecture squarely in the context of civic, as well as religious, life. As New Englanders built new spired edifices on village greens, they were simultaneously adapting to the new culture of the early American republic.

Buggeln, Gretchen. The Suburban Church: Modernism and Community in Postwar America . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015.

DOI: 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694952.001.0001 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

Buggeln highlights an often forgotten aspect of the suburban experience, the construction of a church in the modernist idiom. She examines how new religious concerns, such as Christian education, affected the form and use of church buildings and also explores how these structures have fared over time. Buggeln views the church building process as collaborative, with an architect, as well as church building committees and active congregational involvement.

Carter, Thomas. Building Zion: The Material World of the Mormon Settlement . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014.

Focusing on Mormon building in Utah, especially the small towns of the Sanpete Valley, Carter charts how the community as a whole came to represent the Mormon’s vision for the world (i.e., Zion). Carter does not stray from hard topics such as polygamy, property distribution, and fashion consciousness. This book is based on decades of fieldwork, which Carter aptly contextualizes as part of the larger story of the western United States.

In this beautifully illustrated volume, with photographs by Jorge Pérez de Lara, Edgerton addresses the relationship between Spanish clergy and the indigenous people they were trying to convert in Mexico and what is now New Mexico. Using churches and convents as evidence, he explores indigenous contributions to religious art and architecture and uses theater as a way to understand the spaces and the activities they fostered.

Nelson, Louis P., ed. American Sanctuary: Understanding Sacred Spaces . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.

This edited volume explores how sacred space is created. Despite the use of the term “sanctuary” in the title, essays explore public parks, front yards, domestic spaces, and memorials as well as temples and churches. Various authors examine Christian, Jewish, and Hindu material expressions, some from the past and others more recent. One of the chief lessons is that the meanings inscribed on sacred places are not fixed.

Upton, Dell. Holy Things and Profane: Anglican Parish Churches in Colonial Virginia . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press for Architectural History Foundation, 1986.

In this landmark volume, Upton turns his attention to Anglican churches in colonial Virginia. The volume is organized around three themes: power, hospitality, and dancing (the latter along the lines of community performance). The book uses religious spaces to better understand the people who occupied them rather than theology. Division based on social and economic status is a major theme.

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Essay: Vernacular Architecture

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01.1 Background

How sensitive are you of the built environment that you live in? Have you ever come across a building that is rather ordinary but is fascinating and has a story behind it? Have you ever wondered why people build the way they do or why they choose that material over others or even why the building faces in that direction.

Fig 1- Palmyra House Nandgaon, India (Style-Contemporary; Principles-Vernacular)

In answering these questions we need to look at the communities, their identities and their tradition over time and this in essence is what is called “Vernacular Architecture’’.

The purest definition of vernacular architecture is simple…it is architecture without architects. It is the pure response to a particular person’s or society’s building needs. It fulfils these needs because it is crafted by the individual and society it is in. In addition the building methods are tested through trial-and-error by the society of which they are built until their building methods near perfection (over time) and are tailored to the climatic, aesthetic, functional, and sociological needs of their given society. Because the person constructing the structure tends to be the person who will be using it, the architecture will be perfectly tailored to that individual’s particular wants and needs.

Much of the assimilation of the vernacular architecture that we see today in India comes from the trading countries. India is a place which has many different cultures and has seen rapid economic growth over the past few decades which not only transforms people’s lives but also changes everyday environment in which they live, people in the nation are faced daily with the dual challenges. On one hand modernization and on the other preserving the heritage including all their built heritage. This gives us multiple perspectives on vernacular environments and the pure heritage of the country.

Fig 2-A modern adaptation of brick façade along with the contemporary design of the building. https://www.archdaily.com/530844/emerging-practices-in-india-anagram-architects

Gairole House, Gurgaon, Haryana, India

“Vernacular buildings’’ across the globe provide instructive examples of sustainable solutions to building problems. Yet, these solutions are assumed to be inapplicable to modern buildings. Despite some views to the contrary, there continues to be a tendency to consider innovative building technology as the hallmark of modern architecture because tradition is commonly viewed as the antonym of modernity. The problem is addressed by practical exercises and fieldwork studies in the application of vernacular traditions to current problems.

The humanistic desire to be culturally connected to ones surroundings is reflected in a harmonious architecture, a typology which can be identified with a specific region. This sociologic facet of architecture is present in a material, a color scheme, an architectural genre, a spatial language or form that carries through the urban framework. The way human settlements are structured in modernity has been vastly unsystematic; current architecture exists on a singular basis, unfocused on the connectivity of a community as a whole.

Fig 3-Traditional jail screens, Rajasthan, India

Vernacular architecture adheres to basic green architectural principles of energy efficiency and utilizing materials and resources in close proximity to the site. These structures capitalize on the native knowledge of how buildings can be effectively designed as well as how to take advantage of local materials and resources. Even in an age where materials are available well beyond our region, it is essential to take into account the embodied energy lost in the transportation of these goods to the construction site.

Fig 4- Anagram Architects, Brick screen wall: SAHRDC building, Delhi, India

The effectiveness of climate responsive architecture is evident over the course of its life, in lessened costs of utilities and maintenance. A poorly designed structure which doesn’t consider environmental or vernacular factors can ultimately cost the occupant – in addition to the environment – more in resources than a properly designed building. For instance, a structure with large windows on the south façade in a hot, arid climate would lose most of its air conditioning efforts to the pervading sun, ultimately increasing the cost of energy. By applying vernacular strategies to modern design, a structure can ideally achieve net zero energy use, and be a wholly self-sufficient building.

01.2NEED FOR STUDY

Buildings use twice the energy of cars and trucks consuming 30% of the world’s total energy and 16% of water consumption by 2050 they could go beyond 40%

Emitting 3008 tons of carbon which is the main cause of global warming.

In India a quarter of energy that is consumed goes in making and operating the buildings. Also almost half of the materials that we dig out form the ground goes into construction of buildings, roads and other construction projects. Hence, buildings are a very large cause of the environmental problems that we face today. Therefore, it is really important to re-demonstrate that good, comfortable sustainable buildings can play a major role in the improvement of our environment as well as can keep par with the modern designs and can perform even better than them.

The form and structure of the built environment is highly controlled by the factors such as the local area architecture or climate etc. In situations like these we need to study the forms in respect to our environment.

In India there is a whole lot variety of climate ranges and a constant need for developing architecture that will support the environment. We as architects need to study modern designs as well as the functions of the built form in respect to the local climate and cultural context.

VERNACULAR Architecture the simplest form of addressing human needs, is seemingly forgotten in modern architecture .But the amalgamation of the two can certainly aid to a more efficient built form.

However, due to recent rises in energy costs, the trend has sensibly swung the other way. Architects are embracing regionalism and cultural building traditions, given that these structures have proven to be energy efficient and altogether sustainable. In this time of rapid technological advancement and urbanization, there is still much to be learned from the traditional knowledge of vernacular construction. These low-tech methods of creating housing which is perfectly adapted to its local area are brilliant, for the reason that these are the principles which are more often ignored by prevailing architects. Hence, the study of this subject is much needed for better architects of future that are sensitive to the built form and the environment as well.

This study aims to explore the balance between the contemporary architecture practices Vis a Vis the vernacular architectural techniques. This work hinges on such ideas and practices as ecological design, modular and incremental design, standardization, and flexible and temporal concepts in the design of spaces. The blurred edges between the traditional and modern technical aspects of building design, as addressed by both vernacular builders and modern architects, are explored.

The above aim has been divided among the following objectives-

• Study of vernacular architecture in modern context.

• Study of parameters that make a building efficient.

• To explore new approaches towards traditional techniques.

• Study of the built environment following this concept.

• To explore approaches to achieve form follows energy.

01.4 FUTURE SCOPE

Hence, the need to study this approach is becoming more relevant with the modern times.

01.5 HYPOTHESIS

Fusion of the vernacular and contemporary architecture will help in the design of buildings which are more sustainable and connect to the cultural values of people.

01.6 METHODOLOGY

01.7 QUESTIONAIRES

• Is vernacular architecture actually sustainable in today’s context in terms of durability and performance?

• How vernacular architecture has influenced the urban architecture of INDIA?

• Local architecture or modern architecture which is more loved by the locals that are living in the cities compared to the locals living the rural area?

• Will the passive design techniques from vernacular architecture contribute in the reduction of environmental crisis due to increasing pollution and other threats?

• Modern architecture has evolved from the use of concrete to steel and glass and other modern materials. What is the reason that the sustainability of local materials were compromised during these times which led to the underrated statement or a norm that vernacular architecture is village architecture as stated by the majority today ?

02.1Introduction

The discussion and debate about the value of vernacular traditions in the architecture and formation in the settlements in today’s world is no longer polarized.

India undoubtedly has a great architectural heritage which conjures images of Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri, South Indian temples and Forts of Rajasthan. But, what represents Modern Architecture in India.

India has been a country of long history and deep rooted traditions. Here history is not a fossilized past but a living tradition. The very existence of tradition is proof in itself of its shared acceptance over changed time and circumstance, and thus its continuum.

This spirit of adaptation and assimilation continues to be an integral aspect of Indian architecture in the post-independence era as well. As such post-Independence India had voluntarily embraced modernism as a political statement by inviting world renowned Modern architect Le Corbusier to design capital city of young and free nation with democratic power structure.

Despite strong continuum of classical architecture from Indian traditions, these new interventions gained currency and came to be preferred choices for emulation of architects of the following genre. Not only Corbusier, even Louis Kahn, Frank Lloyd Wright and Buck Minster Fuller had their stints in India, Indian masters also got trained and apprenticed overseas, under international masters and continued the legacy forward.

Figure 1 Terracotta Façade –A traditional material used to create a modern design for a façade https://in.pinterest.com/pin/356910339198958537/

02.2Vernacular architecture

02.2.1 Definition

Vernacular architecture is an architectural style that is designed based on local needs, availability of construction materials and reflecting local traditions. Originally, vernacular architecture did not use formally-schooled architects, but relied on the design skills and tradition of local builders.

Figure 2 A Traditional Kerala house https://in.pinterest.com/pin/538672805410302086/

Later in the late 19th century many professional architects started exploring this architectural style and worked while using elements from this style. Many of those architects included people such as Le Corbusier, Frank Ghery and Laurie baker.

Vernacular architecture can also be defined as the “architecture of people “with its ethnic regional and local dialects. It is an aware style of architecture coined by the local builders through their practical knowledge and experiences gained overtime. Hence, Vernacular architecture is the architectural style of the people, by the people, for the people.

02.2.2 Influences on the vernacular

Vernacular architecture is influenced by a great range of different aspects of human behavior and environment, leading to differing building forms for almost every different context; even neighboring villages may have subtly different approaches to the construction and use of their dwellings, even if they at first appear the same. Despite these variations, every building is subject to the same laws of physics, and hence will demonstrate significant similarities in structural forms.

One of the most significant influences on vernacular architecture is the macro climate of the area in which the building is constructed. Buildings in cold climates invariably have high thermal mass or significant amounts of insulation. They are usually sealed in order to prevent heat loss, and openings such as windows tend to be small or non-existent. Buildings in warm climates, by contrast, tend to be constructed of lighter materials and to allow significant cross-ventilation through openings in the fabric of the building.

Buildings for a continental climate must be able to cope with significant variations in temperature, and may even be altered by their occupants according to the seasons.

Buildings take different forms depending on precipitation levels in the region – leading to dwellings on stilts in many regions with frequent flooding or rainy monsoon seasons. Flat roofs are rare in areas with high levels of precipitation. Similarly, areas with high winds will lead to specialized buildings able to cope with them, and buildings will be oriented to present minimal area to the direction of prevailing winds.

Climatic influences on vernacular architecture are substantial and can be extremely complex. Mediterranean vernacular, and that of much of the Middle East, often includes a courtyard with a fountain or pond; air cooled by water mist and evaporation is drawn through the building by the natural ventilation set up by the building form. Similarly, Northern African vernacular often has very high thermal mass and small windows to keep the occupants cool, and in many cases also includes chimneys, not for fires but to draw air through the internal spaces. Such specializations are not designed, but learned by trial and error over generations of building construction, often existing long before the scientific theories which explain why they work.

The way of life of building occupants, and the way they use their shelters, is of great influence on building forms. The size of family units, who shares which spaces, how food is prepared and eaten, how people interact and many other cultural considerations will affect the layout and size of dwellings.

For example- In the city of Ahmedabad, the dense fabric of city is divided in pols, dense neighborhoods developed on the basis of its community and its cohesion.Traditionllay the pols are characterized by intricately carved timber framed buildings built around a courtyards with narrow winding streets to ensure a comfortable environment within the Hot Arid climate of Ahmedabad. The design of these settlements also included stepped well and ponds to create a cooler microclimate, these are a great example of ecological sustainability with the Cultural influences.

Figure 3 Mud house Gujrat, Traditional mirror work done on the elevation of the hut https://in.pinterest.com/pin/439875088574491684/

Culture also has a great influence on the appearance of vernacular buildings, as occupants often decorate buildings in accordance with local customs and beliefs.

For example- Warli art a form of representation of stories through simple forms like circles triangles and square are a form of decoration as well as a cultural tradition.

02.2.3 The Indian vernacular architecture

India is a country of great cultural and geographical diversity. Encompassing distinct zones such as the great Thar desert of Rajasthan, the Himalayan mountains, the Indo-Gangetic Plains,the Ganga delta, the tropical coastal region along the Arabian sea and the Bay of Bengal,the Deccan plateau and the Rann of the Kutch, each region has its own cultural identity and its own distinctive architectural forms and construction techniques that have evolved over the centuries as a response to its environmental and cultural setting. A simple unit of the dwelling has many distinct forms which depend on the climate, material available , social and cultural needs of the community.

Indian vernacular architecture the informal, functional architecture of structures, are unschooled informal architectural design and their work reflects the rich diversity of Indian climate, locally available building and materials and intricate variation in local social custom and craftsmanship. It has been estimated that worldwide close to 90% of all buildings is vernacular, meaning that it is for daily use for ordinary, local people and built by local craftsman. The term vernacular architecture in general refers to the informal building structures through traditional building methods by local builders without using the services of a professional architect. It is the most widespread form of building.

Indian vernacular architecture has evolved over time through the skillful craftsmanship of the local people. Despite the diversity, this architecture can be broadly divided into three categories.

• Semi pakka

“Vernacular traditions are a dynamic and creative ‘processes through which people, as active agents, interpret pat knowledge and experience to face the challenges and demands of the present. Tradition is an active process of transmission, interpretation, negotiation and adaptation of vernacular knowledge, skills and experience.”

-Asquith and Vellinga(2006)

IMG-Vellore house, Chennai, India

The architecture that has evolved over the centuries may be defined as the “architecture without architects”

1. KUCCHA BUILDINGS

They are the simplest and most honest form of buildings constructed using materials as per their availability. The practical limitations of the available building material dictate the specific form. The advantages of a Kuccha is that construction materials are cheap and easily available and relatively less labor is required. It can be said the Kuccha architecture Is not built for posterity nut with a certain lifespan in mind after which it will be renewed.

According to Dawson and Cooper (1998), the beauty of kuccha architecture lies in the practice of developing practical and pragmatic solutions to use local materials to counter the environment in the most economically effective manner.

For example in the North East, Bamboo is used to combat a damp, mild climate while in Rajasthan and Kutch ,mud, sunbaked bricks and locally available material is used to mould structures ;in the Himalayas they often use stone and sunken structures to protect themselves from the harsh cold. While in the south, thatch, coconut palms is used to create pitched roofs to confront a fierce monsoon.

MATERIALS-Mud, Grass, Bamboo, Thatch or sticks, Stone, Bamboo, lime

TECHNIQUE OF CONSTRUCTION: Construction of these houses were constructed with earth or soil as the primary construction material. Mud was used for plastering the walls.

IMG-House dwellings in Himalayas with sunken construction and stone used as insulating materials to block winds during harsh winters, HIMACHAL PRADESH

2. PUKKA BUILDINGS

The architectural expression of Pukka is often determined by the establishments or art form which has been developed by the community, such as WARLI paintings. The Pukka buildings are generally built with permanence in mind. Often using locally available materials. Often using locally available materials, the pukka architecture has evolved to produce architectural typologies which are again region specific.

MATERIALS-Stone, brick, clay etc.

TECHNIQUE OF CONSTRUCTION- Construction of their house are done using masonry structure which may be brick or stone, depending upon the locally available material in the region where the structure is constructed, Manual labor is much high in construction of these structure than the kachcha houses.

3. SEMI PUKKA BUILDINGS

A combination of the kachcha and pukka style together forms the semi- pukka. It has evolved as villagers have acquired the resources to add elements constructed of the durable materials characteristic of a pukka house, Its architecture has always evolves organically as the needs and resources of the local people residing in the specific region. The characteristic feature of semi pukka houses are that these houses has walls made from pukka material such as brick in cement/lime mortar, stone, clay tile but the roof construction is done in the kachcha way using Thach, bamboo etc. as the principal material of construction. Construction of these houses employs less manual labor than that of the pukka houses. Thach roofing Mud Adobe walls with Lime plaster.

02.2.4 CLIMATE RESPONSIVE ARCHITECTURE

The Climate of India comprises a wide range across its terrain. Five zones that can be identified in India on the basis on their climate are Cold, Hot and Dry, Composite, Temperate and Warm and humid.

Figure 4Climate zones of INDIA

Source- http://high-performancebuildings.org/climate-zone.php#;

These zones can be further narrowed down to three on the basis of passive techniques used and architectural styles of different regions.

1. HOT AND DRY

2. WARM AND HUMID

• HOT AND DRY

The hot and dry zones of India include Ahmedabad, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

A hot and dry climate is characterized by a mean monthly maximum temperature above 30 ºC. The region in this climate is usually flat with sandy or rocky ground conditions.

In this climate, it is imperative to control solar radiation and movement of hot winds. The building design criteria should, thus, provide appropriate shading, reduce exposed area, and increase thermal capacity.

Design Considerations for building in Hot and dry climate-

The hot and dry climate is characterized by very high radiation levels and ambient temperatures, accompanied by low relative humidity. Therefore, it is desirable to keep the heat out of the building, and if possible, increase the humidity level. The design objectives accordingly are:

(A) Resist heat gain by:

• Decreasing the exposed surface

• Increasing the thermal resistance

• Increasing the thermal capacity

• Increasing the buffer spaces

• Decreasing the air-exchange rate during daytime

• Increasing the shading

(B) Promote heat loss by:

• Ventilation of appliances

• Increasing the air exchange rate during cooler parts of the day or night-time

• Evaporative cooling (e.g. roof surface evaporative cooling)

• Earth coupling (e.g. earth-air pipe system)

Figure 5 JODHPUR CITY CLOSELY STACKED HOUSES TO PREVENT HEAT GAIN AND TO PROVIDE SHADE Source- http://www.traveldglobe.com/destination/jodhpur

(a) Planning: Indigenous planning layout was followed for places and simple small dwellings as seen in Shahjahanabad, Jaisalmer and many other cities in India. This type of a dense clustering layout ensured that the buildings were not exposed to the outer sun. This prevents the solar gain and the hot winds from entering the premises and also allows the cold wind to circulate within the building.

Figure 6 Hot and dry region settlement https://www.slideshare.net/sumiran46muz/hot-and-dry-climate-65931347

(b) Waterbodies: Use of waterbodies such as ponds and lakes. These not only act as heat sinks, but can also be used for evaporative cooling. Hot air blowing over water gets cooled which can then be allowed to enter the building. Fountains and water cascades in the vicinity of a building aid this process.

Figure 7 AMBER FORT RAJASTHAN, INDIA A garden is positioned amidst the lake to provide a cooler microclimate for outdoor sitting.

Source-https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maota_Lake.JPG

Figure 8 Earth berming technique: Evaporative cooling through water feature Source-http://mnre.gov.in/solar-energy/ch5.pdf

(c) Street width and orientation: Streets are narrow so that they cause mutual shading of buildings. They need to be oriented in the north-south direction to block solar radiation.

Figure 9 Design techniques in Hot and dry regions Source-http://mnre.gov.in/solar-energy/ch5.pdf

(c) Open spaces and built form: Open spaces such as courtyards and atria are beneficial as they promote ventilation. In addition, they can be provided with ponds and fountains for evaporative cooling.

Courtyards act as heat sinks during the day and radiate the heat back to the ambient at night. The size of the courtyards should be such that the mid-morning and the hot afternoon sun are avoided. Earth-coupled building (e.g. earth berming) can help lower the temperature and also deflect hot summer winds.

Figure 10 Courtyard planning of Hot and dry region Source-http://mnre.gov.in/solar-energy/ch5.pdf

(2) Orientation and planform

An east-west orientation (i.e. longer axis along the east-west), should be preferred. This is due to the fact that south and north facing walls are easier to shade than east and west walls.

It may be noted that during summer, it is the north wall which gets significant exposure to solar radiation in most parts of India, leading to very high temperatures in north-west rooms.

For example, in Jodhpur, rooms facing north-west can attain a maximum temperature exceeding 38 ºC. Hence, shading of the north wall is

Imperative.

The surface to volume (S/V) ratio should be kept as minimum as possible to reduce heat gains.

Cross-ventilation must be ensured at night as ambient temperatures during this period are low.

(3) Building envelope

(a) Roof: The diurnal range of temperature being large, the ambient night temperatures are about 10 ºC lower than the daytime values and are accompanied by cool breezes. Hence, flat roofs may be considered in this climate as they can be used for sleeping at night in summer as well as for daytime activities in winter.

Figure 11 Flat roof for reverse heat gain during night Source-http://mnre.gov.in/solar-energy/ch5.pdf

The material of the roof should be massive; a reinforced cement concrete (RCC) slab is preferred to asbestos cement (AC) sheet roof. External insulation in the form of mud phuska with inverted earthen pots is also suitable. A false ceiling in rooms having exposed roofs can help in reducing the discomfort level.

Evaporative cooling of the roof surface and night-time radiative cooling can also be employed. In case the former is used, it is better to use a roof having high thermal transmittance (a high U-value roof rather than one with lower U-value). The larger the roof area, the better is the cooling effect.

The maximum requirement of water per day for a place like Jodhpur is about 14.0 kg per square meter of roof area cooled. Spraying of water is preferable to an open roof pond system. One may also consider of using a vaulted roof since it provides a larger surface area for heat loss compared to a flat roof.

(b) Walls: In multi-storeyed buildings, walls and glazing account for most of the heat gain. It is estimated that they contribute to about 80% of the annual cooling load of such buildings .So, the control of heat gain through the walls by shading is an important consideration in building design.

(c) Fenestration: In hot and dry climates, minimizing the window area (in terms of glazing) can definitely lead to lower indoor temperatures. It is found that providing a glazing size of 10% of the floor area gives better performance than that of 20%. More windows should be provided in the north facade of the building as compared to the east, west and south as it receives lesser radiation during the year. All openings should be protected from the sun by using external shading devices such as chajjas and fins.

Moveable shading devices such as curtains and venetian blinds can also be used. Openings are preferred at higher levels (ventilators) as they help in venting hot air. Since daytime temperatures are high during summer, the windows should be kept closed to keep the hot air out and opened during night-time to admit cooler air.

Figure 12 Louvers for providing shade and diffused lighting

http://www.nzdl.org

The use of ‘jaalis’(lattice work) made of wood, stone or RCC may be considered as they

Allow ventilation while blocking solar radiation.

(a) Color and texture: Change of color is a cheap and effective technique for lowering

Indoor temperatures. Colors having low absorptivity should be used to paint the external surface. Darker shades should be avoided for surfaces exposed to direct solar radiation. The surface of the roof can be of white broken glazed tiles (china mosaic flooring). The surface of the wall should preferably be textured to facilitate self-shading.

Remarks: As the winters in this region are uncomfortably cold, windows should be designed such that they encourage direct gain during this period. Deciduous trees can be used to shade the building during summer and admit sunlight during winter. There is a general tendency to think that well-insulated and very thick walls give a good thermal performance. This is true only if the glazing is kept to a minimum and windows are well-shaded, as is found in traditional architecture.

However, in case of non-conditioned buildings, a combination of insulated walls and high

Percentage of glazing will lead to very uncomfortable indoor conditions. This is because the building will act like a green house or oven, as the insulated walls will prevent the radiation admitted through windows from escaping back to the environment. Indoor plants can be provided near the window, as they help in evaporative cooling and in absorbing solar radiation. Evaporative cooling and earth-air pipe systems can be used effectively in this climate. Desert coolers are extensively used in this climate, and if properly sized, they can alleviate discomfort by as much as

• Warm and humid

The warm and humid climate is characterized by high temperatures accompanied by very

High humidity leading to discomfort. Thus, cross ventilation is both desirable and essential.

Protection from direct solar radiation should also be ensured by shading.

The main objectives of building design in this zone should be:

• Decreasing exposed surface area

• Increasing thermal resistance

• Increasing buffer spaces

• Increasing shading

• Increasing reflectivity

(B) To promote heat loss by:

• Increasing air exchange rate (ventilation) throughout the day

• Decreasing humidity levels

The general recommendations for building design in the warm and humid climate are as follows:

(a) Landform: The consideration of landform is immaterial for a flat site. However, if there

are slopes and depressions, then the building should be located on the windward side or crest to take advantage of cool breezes.

(b) Waterbodies: Since humidity is high in these regions, water bodies are not essential.

(c) Open spaces and built form: Buildings should be spread out with large open spaces for

Unrestricted air movement. In cities, buildings on stilts can promote ventilation

and cause cooling at the ground level.

(d) Street width and orientation: Major streets should be oriented parallel to or within 30º of the prevailing wind direction during summer months to encourage ventilation in warm and humid regions. A north-south direction is ideal from the point of view of blocking solar radiation. The width of the streets should be such that the intense solar radiation during late morning and early afternoon is avoided in summer.

Since the temperatures are not excessive, free plans can be evolved as long as the house is under protective shade. An unobstructed air path through the interiors is important. The buildings could be long and narrow to allow cross-ventilation. For example, a singly loaded corridor plan (i.e. rooms on one side only) can be adopted instead of a doubly loaded one. Heat and moisture producing areas must be ventilated and

Separated from the rest of the structure (Fig. 5.21) [8]. Since temperatures in the shade are not very high, semi open spaces such as balconies, verandahs and porches

can be used advantageously for daytime activities. Such spaces also give protection from rainfall. In multistoreyed buildings a central courtyard can be provided with vents at higher levels to draw away the rising hot air.

(a) Roof: In addition to providing shelter from rain and heat, the form of the roof should be planned to promote air flow. Vents at the roof top effectively induce ventilation and draw hot air out. As diurnal temperature variation is low, insulation does not provide any additional benefit for a normal reinforced cement concrete (RCC) roof in a non-conditioned building.

However, very thin roofs having low thermal mass, such as asbestos cement (AC) sheet roofing, do require insulation as they tend to rapidly radiate heat into the interiors during

Fig- Padmanabhapuram Palace

A double roof with a ventilated space in between can also be used to promote air flow.

(a) Walls: As with roofs, the walls must also be designed to promote air flow. Baffle walls, both inside and outside the building can help to divert the flow of wind inside .They should be protected from the heavy rainfall prevalent in such areas. If adequately sheltered, exposed brick walls and mud plastered walls work very well by absorbing the humidity and helping the building to breathe. Again, as for roofs, insulation does not significantly improve the performance of a non-conditioned building.

(b) Fenestration: Cross-ventilation is important in the warm and humid regions. All doors and windows are preferably kept open for maximum ventilation for most of the year. These must be provided with venetian blinds or louvers to shelter the rooms from the sun and rain, as well as for the control of air movement.

Openings of a comparatively smaller size can be placed on the windward side, while the corresponding openings on the leeward side may be bigger for facilitating a plume effect for natural ventilation. The openings should be shaded by external overhangs. Outlets at higher levels serve to vent hot air. A few examples illustrating how the air movement within a room can be better distributed, are shown in figures below-

(c) Color and texture: The walls should be painted with light pastel shades or whitewashed, while the surface of the roof can be of broken glazed tile (china mosaic flooring). Both techniques help to reflect the sunlight back to the ambient, and hence reduce heat gain of the building. The use of appropriate colors and surface finishes is a cheap and very effective technique to lower indoor temperatures. It is worth mentioning that the surface finish should be protected from/ resistant to the effects of moisture, as this can otherwise lead to growth of mould and result in the decay of building elements.

Remarks: Ceiling fans are effective in reducing the level of discomfort in this type of climate. Desiccant cooling techniques can also be employed as they reduce the humidity level. Careful water proofing and drainage of water are essential considerations of building design due to heavy rainfall. In case of air-conditioned buildings, dehumidification plays a significant role in the design of the plant.

Figure 13 Traditional Kerala house

Parameters for sustainability in Warm and Humid Climate

Ecological Site planning The house is generally designed in response to ecology-the backwaters, plantations etc. allowing the building to effortlessly blend in to the landscape of coconut, palm and mango trees etc.

The house is divided in to quarters according to “Vastu Shastra”. It is generally desirable to build the house in the south west corner of the north-west quadrant. The south east corner is reserved for cremation purposes while the north-east corner has a bathing pool.

Local Materials The building is made from locally available stone and timber and terracotta tiles for roof.

Physical Response to climate The plan is generally square or rectangular in response to the hot and humid climate. The central courtyard and the deep verandas around the structure ensure cross ventilation. The south west orientation of the house prevent harsh sun rays from penetrating the house. Sloping roofs designed to combat heavy monsoon of the region. The overhanging roofs with projecting caves help to provide shade and cover up the walls from the rain.

Embodied energy The building use materials like Stone and timber which are a reservoir of embodied energy and have the potential to be recycled or reused.

Socio-Economic Adaptability Toilets have been integrated into the design of the house and RCC (Reinforced cement concrete) has been introduced to build houses with larger spans.

2017-12-6-1512573056

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The vernacular's return to favour

Leïla el-Wakil Egyptian-Swiss art historian and architect, she taught at the University of Geneva's Faculty of Humanities and Institute of Architecture until recently. She is the editor of  Hassan Fathy dans son temps (2013) [Hassan Fathi: An Architectural Life], a collective work translated into English in 2018.

In 1964, an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) marked its era. Titled  Architecture without architects , it featured a photographic compilation of vernacular buildings collected from all over the world, bearing witness to a collective know-how, localized and passed down through use. The exhibition, organized by Austrian-American writer and architect Bernard Rudofsky, fully rehabilitated architecture without an architect. The exhibition’s success is sufficient proof of the interest in this theme:  Architecture without architects toured eighty museums around the world for eleven years. 

From the mud houses of the  Dogons in Mali to the dry-stone constructions of Italy's  Cinque Terre  region, both UNESCO World Heritage sites; from Finnish wooden mökki  to troglodyte houses, vernacular architecture is everywhere. This type of construction is renowned for the skill of its craftsmen, the simplicity of its means, its respect for the environment and the common sense of its genius. 

Rudofsky's contribution did not only put the spotlight on vernacular construction, it also fertilized architectural thought and creation worldwide. Architects such as Finland's Alvar Aalto, India's Charles Correa and Sri Lanka's Geoffrey Bawa drew inspiration from the traditions of their homelands.

The hell of reinforced concrete

A champion of architecture without architects, Hassan Fathy from Egypt made a name for himself worldwide with the publication of his book,  Architecture for the Poor, An experiment in Rural Egypt  (1969), a thrilling account of the construction of New Gourna, a model village on the west bank of Luxor. A fervent adept of his country's ancestral skills, he claimed to be a descendant of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, a prolific builder, when he revived the use of mud bricks, a poor material that encouraged people to build their own homes in the villages of Upper Egypt. 

In a satirical play titled  The Hell of Reinforced Concrete (1964), he describes the globalization of architecture and urban planning. In it, he also denounced the inappropriate use of reinforced concrete in the extreme climate of the Sahara, which turned the new town of Baris into an unlivable furnace. In contrast, he praises the old village of mud houses, clustered along narrow covered alleys, which protect the inhabitants from the heat and sandstorms. For Fathy, a return to the teachings of tradition is essential. 

The combination of the moucharabieh and the malqaf, literally “wind catcher”, makes it possible to cool and ventilate house interiors naturally

Thick earth or stone walls provide better thermal insulation than thin reinforced concrete walls. The combination of the  moucharabieh (projecting window with carved wooden latticework) and the  malqaf  (called  badgir in Iran), literally “wind catcher”, makes it possible to cool and ventilate house interiors naturally, infinitely better and at lower energy cost than air conditioning.

Hassan Fathy was inspired by the very layout of the introverted Arab-Muslim house, structured around its interior courtyards and gardens, to create remarkable holiday homes along the Saqqara road south of Cairo, such as Mit Rihan, which illustrate his conception of appropriate architecture. In 1980, he was awarded the Aga Khan Prize for his life's work, and set an example for many other architects in the region, including Ramses Wissa Wassef, Abdel Wahid el-Wakil and Omar el Farouk. 

As of the 1960s, experiments in returning to raw earth technology spread from the Maghreb to the Mashreq. They culminated in the creation of associations such as  The Nubian Vault , which provides the most destitute in sub-Saharan Africa with mud houses, giving people back the possibility of building their own homes. 

This enthusiasm for raw earth has spread far beyond the region's borders. Founded in 1979,  CRATerre , a laboratory based in Grenoble (France), has demonstrated Western interest in this technology. It has contributed to its expansion worldwide. 

Bamboo framework

Today, there are many devotees of raw earth in its traditional forms, such as Anna Heringer, whose egg-shaped raw earth structure built for the 2016 Venice Biennale evokes the thatched mud huts found in Maharashtra, in central western India. Young firms, such as Terrabloc in Geneva, have developed stabilized earth blocks with a percentage of cement that allows them to comply with Swiss standards by improving earth's strength and durability. 

Other types of material, such as wood, have sparked a similar resurgence in interest. This is hardly surprising, given that a wooden building is able to capture carbon dioxide. Major firms are returning to this material, and even high-rise buildings are springing up. In 2019, Øystein Elgsaas erected an 18-storey wooden tower in Brumunddal, Norway.

Bamboo constructions combined with contemporary principles create lightweight, durable structures

Traditional bamboo frameworks from Asia and Latin America are also increasingly popular. Colombian designer Simón Vélez, who vaunts the merits of this “vegetal steel”, combines his bamboo constructions with contemporary principles to create lightweight, durable structures, such as the “nameless” church in Cartagena (Colombia). Others have followed suit.

The current shift in focus is making professionals take a more responsible approach to the question of architectural design and its materialization. All the lessons of the past are worth re-examining from a sustainability perspective: the science of siting and orientation to take advantage of sunlight and prevailing winds; the use of biosourced materials drawn from the local environment; recourse to low-tech and artisanal skills; common sense linked to careful observation of the  genius loci and old buildings. 

Even more radical, though it may seem less creative, is the culture of re-use that needs to be relearned today. In order to avoid wasting resources, unthinkable in the past, it is not only materials but most of all existing buildings that must continue to be used, by adapting them to new purposes and new needs.

The heritage of earthen architecture

The UNESCO World Heritage Earthen Architecture Programme (WHEAP) was established in 2007 to improve the state of conservation and management of earthen architecture sites worldwide. An inventory made in 2012 revealed that more than 150 World Heritage properties were totally or partially built with earth – ranging from mosques and palaces to historic city centres and cultural landscapes – representing over 10 per cent of all properties listed.

During its ten years of existence the programme carried out pilot projects, such as rehabilitation activities in Djenné, Mali, and the safeguarding of New Gourna Village in Egypt, and conducted capacity building, research and development activities. The World Heritage Centre continues to cooperate with the programme’s key partner, the International Centre on Earthen Architecture (CRAterre), in identifying, conserving and managing earthen architecture. A research laboratory based in Grenoble, France, CRAterre disseminates knowledge and know-how about raw earthen construction worldwide. 

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• Review article
• Open access
• Published: 24 June 2022

Literature review on earthen vernacular heritage: contributions to a referential framework

• Gilberto Carlos 1 ,
• Telma Ribeiro   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5455-5066 1 ,
• Maddalena Achenza 2 ,
• Cristina Cruz Ferreira de Oliveira 3 &
• Humberto Varum 4  

Built Heritage volume  6 , Article number:  15 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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The state of the art of earthen architecture and vernacular built heritage comprises a complex set of issues that range from fundamental problematic recognition to anthropological and cultural studies and, more recently, to technological and experimental analyses. This paper addresses the development of the field, following the milestones of the international literature and pursuing a reflective-theory approach within a historical framework. It aims to explore the main contributions that have enhanced vernacular heritage and earthen architecture as specific domains, from pioneering public awareness essays to institutional expertise guidelines. Finally, in addition to the literature review process, this paper considers the recent corpus of recommendations from conservation management reference institutions, the updating of the operative problematic of earthen vernacular built heritage, and the relevance of local community involvement in facing increasing challenges.

1 Introduction

This paper addresses the state of the art of earthen vernacular architecture with the objective of establishing a general theoretical framework and promoting an extended focus on specific research challenges.

Considering the geographical diversity of the topic, this paper addresses the international milestones of published studies on earthen built heritage. Therefore, the draft is organised into five major conceptual categories that expose the historical progression of the theme, which can be summarised as follows:

The definition and evolution of earthen vernacular architecture scientific research

The consolidation of the sample

Advances in the technical characterisation of earthen materials and systems

Protection of the earthen built environment

Earthen architectural heritage conservation

This paper applies a reflective-theory methodology approach to a conventional literature review, creating a progressive illustration that extends from ethnographic studies that highlight vernacular earthen architecture to technological and the most recent experimental studies.

2 The definition and evolution of earthen vernacular architecture scientific research

There is much to learn from architecture before it became an expert’s art. The untutored builders in space and time – the protagonist of this show – demonstrate an admirable talent for fitting their buildings into the natural surroundings. Instead of trying to ‘conquer’ nature, as we do, they welcome the vagaries of climate and the challenge of topography. (Rudofsky 1990 , 5)

The early literature on earthen architecture is associated mainly with traditional and vernacular architectural essays. Even in recent papers, such as those that constitute the current issue of the Built Heritage Journal, it is quite usual to refer to the pioneering contributions of names such as Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Bernard Rudofsky, Hassan Fathy, and Paul Oliver to establish the first milestones. Although there are questions regarding these scholars’ scientific structures, the impact of their work was so overwhelming that they are still considered key figures in the development of the subject (Dethier 2019 ).

According to a significant number of interpretations, these contributions are supported more by their critical approach to the subject than by the subject development itself. In the 1960s, the Western world, due largely to the exhaustion of modern movements, saw a return to the study of the meaning of traditional forms that characterised the diversity of regional architecture. Rapoport (Frey 2010 ) deepened his studies, establishing the term vernacular architecture in 1968. Rudofsky had already provided a global dimension in the famous ‘Architecture without Architects’ exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1964.

Based on ethnographic perspectives, scholars began to focus on the specific built environments of indigenous communities, decoding the cultural ties between their local needs and their architectural solutions, breaking ground for the evolution of a concept of cultural identity. Therefore, these references must be perceived outside a simple morphologic-typological inventory, as they are often considered works of dissemination and promotion with subsequent influence beyond their contexts and generation (Asquith and Vellinga 2006 ).

Despite the years that separate them and the methodological differences that configure them, these contributions, with all their strengths and weaknesses, set the bases and the conceptual parameters for present-day definitions of terms (Carlos et al. 2015 ).

The first approach to regional architecture began, naturally, through the first ethnographic essays, initially in the form of monographs dedicated exclusively to small rural settlements with which the authors shared some relationship or affinity. The origin of this field was generated by the increase in the social, cultural, and anthropological sciences from the beginning of the 20th century. With the consequent development of ethnography and human geography, housing, especially traditional forms, came to constitute a valuable aspect of the understanding of communities and their cultural evolution. In the early stage, scholars might have been interested primarily in the most exotic and culturally contrasting civilisations, whereas later, the internal reality of European countries also began to attract interest. Albert Demageon, an unavoidable figure of the social sciences, revealed a new dimension from the 1920s onwards (Oliver 2003 ). An understanding of his approach could be understood as mandatory for any study that aims to comprehend the matrix of the cultural identity phenomenon of each nation, an exacerbated interrogation in Europe troubled by the Great World Wars.

With the deepening of such analyses, construction companies began to request the participation of stakeholders in construction areas. The simple enunciation of processes through popular accounts and local artisans was possible, but the systematisation, registration, and classification of those processes required knowledge and competence. This led to the effective involvement of architects with knowledge of popular architecture, although as supporting agents.

Another determining factor was the consolidation of the ‘antihistorical’ gap in the intellectual process of architecture dictated by the radiant rationalist movement in instances of the international panorama. It is true that relevant antecedents already existed, such as a first reaction, by Ruskin ( 1851 ) as an alternative to the dominance of the neoclassicism of the 19th century. Despite never having imposed itself on its ideological adversary, the Arts and Crafts picturesque perspective continued to captivate and stimulate architects over time, although without massive influence, leading to closer observation of the vernacular legacy. The same legacy, ironically, would become a valid alternative in the announcement of the exhaustion of rationalism itself within its antihistoricist logic. The vernacular legacy began to emerge as a critical reaction to what was considered the dehumanisation of the international style, especially around the mid-20th century. References can be found in the works of those who, like Alvar Aalto, never abstracted from the physical and cultural reality into which they inserted their works and later recognised in Norberg-Schulz’s premised valid themes for experimenting with a theoretical reformulation (Rapoport 1972 ).

Also important was the alienation of European nations, which in the ravaged aftermath of the war imposed political resistance and ideologies on anything foreign. The recognition and validation of political power, even for the wrong reasons, would turn out to be fundamental for the involvement of architects in the study of regional architecture. This involvement would lead to a claim of responsibility for the exclusive execution of surveys of regional architecture before those in political power assimilated the values of national traditions. In a restricted professional cycle, and given the necessary changes and growth in training academics, these professionals would be responsible for the emergence of a theoretical awareness of the intellectual environment. At a later stage, this theoretical development would stimulate repercussions and adherence in the main academic centres through the restructuring of their pedagogical curricula, especially with the inclusion of the ethnography discipline in their courses (Frey 2010 ).

The development of the earthen vernacular heritage literature was a direct consequence of the extension of the earthen architecture characterisation, which was strongly based on the implementation of regional inventory surveys. These recorded technical descriptions, more than an operative objective for the perpetuation of the building culture, were the premise of a collective memory in the face of the decay of the traditional rural economy, which was exponentially felt in industrial countries in the second half of the 20th century (Asquith and Vellinga 2006 ).

Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, this conceptual approach questioning the essence and future of vernacular architecture, in which earthen architecture plays a significant part (Houben and Guillaud 1995 ), is still a relevant branch of the actual literature. This is widely explained by the ineffectiveness of previous awareness documents and actions, especially in the context of national conservation and protection politics (Avrami, Guillaud, and Hardy 2008 ).

3 The consolidation of the sample

A modern select bibliography of earth construction would comprise more than 10,000 titles. Most of these are difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. The bibliography given here covers only the most important works, which are obtainable through normal commercial channels. (Houben and Guillaud 1989 , 359)

The above passage from the revised edition of Earth Construction: A comprehensive guide , published in 1989, reflects the ambition of a literature review on the subject. As can be inferred from the findings of this paper, the limitations of this intention would increase exponentially, especially at the turn of the millennium, due to the high number and great diversity of contributions.

Any contemporary effort to present the state of the art of earthen architecture must be understood as a highly contextualised and interpretative exercise profoundly conditioned by the document language, as the stated references confirm. The proposed bibliography is organised by language: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

It is precisely the references constituting what can be interpreted as ‘the consolidation of the sample’ that contribute to the increase in the research. Despite being framed thematically and chronologically, they represent a significant percentage of recent and actual research and extend the spectrum of approaches to different research problems (Avrami, Guillaud, and Hardy 2008 ).

It is possible to establish that the original focus of most studies was the identification of built heritage assets and a report on their state of conservation. Validated as regional surveys, these studies are usually driven by national administrative directives or academic proposals and are expected, in the long term, to contribute to the documentation on which eventual protective plans and actions are based.

The previously mentioned ethnographic studies from the mid-20th century represent pioneer records using Albert Demageon’s previous work about rural territories and their particular relation with human habitats. Most of these early studies were related to regional internal mobilisations established by national ideologies; the scholars investigated social differentiation and considered the vernacular built environment to be an identity component (Scalesse 1980 ).

Auzelle’s systematisation approach to architectural/urban elements constitutes the main operative complement, especially in the implementation of graphical documentation in architectural surveys. Although regional construction manuals existed in Europe as early as the 18th century (Rauch 2014 ), the period between the 19th and 20th centuries is rich in inventories addressing the vernacular architecture, building systems, and characteristic techniques of specific regions and published in local languages, which constrained their international impact. From this universe of production, it is possible to confirm the substantial development of publications dedicated to rammed-earth and adobe masonry construction and buildings. Houben and Guillaud’s publication in French and English (Houben and Guillaud 1995 ) is a special reference in the area.

The temporal extension of vernacular architecture occurred for two major reasons:

The late value recognition of vernacular buildings, conforming to unbalanced maps of heritage interest and

The intrinsic characteristics of rural areas, which dominate earthen heritage locations, especially remote and less populated ones, tend to be denounced by the main cultural heritage policies and operative investments (Frey 2010 ).

The inventory format was widely developed and published during the last decade of the 20th century, and the report file was used as the preferred documentation systematisation tool. This approach marked institutional engagement in the field and the interest of academics, opening the subject to a range of scientific exercises. This opening was decisive for the beginning of various graduate research investigations, such as master’s dissertations (e.g., Correia 2007a ) and Ph.D. theses (e.g., Ribeiro 2021 ). For example, since the 1980s, the master’s degrees developed at CRAterre have had a major influence.

Progressively, this category has been converging to a more collective dynamic. More recently, individual contributions have been replaced by institutional initiatives through the formats of research project publications (Correia, Dipasquale, and Mecca 2011 ), proceedings of seminars and conferences (Correia, Carlos, and Rocha 2014 ; Correia, Dipasquale, and Mecca 2014 ; Mileto et al. 2018 ), publications based on network activities (Correia et al. 2016a , b ; Correia, Guerrero, and Crosby 2016 ) and research (Dipasquale, Correia, and Mecca 2020 ).

The literature produced in the past decade indicates that worldwide, earthen vernacular architecture has become a subject of unquestionably great interest, especially when literature produced during this decade is compared with literature produced in preceding decades. The earthen vernacular architecture literature in this period has grown considerably in quantity and quality. Four main aspects characterise the scientific production in this area: the typology of the contributions, the countries involved, the content, and the trends.

The typology of the contributions has been implemented with an ever-increasing number of proceedings of conferences dedicated to earthen architecture. During the analysed time frame, several books were published that collected contributions from conferences and congresses (such as TERRA conferences and congresses, ISCEAH and CIAV conferences, LEHM conferences, and VERSUS and RESTAPIA conferences) that focused on earthen architecture but related the subject area to other key areas of interest: from conservation to vernacular architecture and from specific techniques to issues of risk assessment, testifying to the interdisciplinarity that connects earthen architecture with other research areas. This interdisciplinarity can be observed in the proceedings of international conferences held in Mali in 2008 (Rainer, Rivera, and Gandreau 2011 ), Peru in 2012 (Correia et al. 2016a , b ; Correia, Guerrero, and Crosby 2016 ), and France in 2016 (Joffroy, Guillaud, and Sadozaï 2017 ), among others. Additionally, several other international conferences were organised by different academic institutions with the support of the ICOMOS Scientific Committee on Earthen Architectural Heritage (ISCEAH) together with other ISCs, such as the Vernacular Architecture International Committee (CIAV). The result is an extraordinarily rich collection of contributions that offer a very detailed overview of specific research and related subject areas (Hwang, Guillaud, and Gandreau 2011 ; Dachverband Lehm e.V. 2012 ; Mileto, Vegas, and Cristini 2012 ; Correia, Carlos, and Rocha 2014 ; Correia, Dipasquale, and Mecca 2014 ; Mileto et al. 2015 ; LEHM 2016  conference; Mileto et al. 2018 ; Shao, Jakhelln, and Correia 2019 ).

A new typology of publication that appears in the framework and should be mentioned is the publication of data from international projects. Among this group of publications, books edited as a result of the Lessons from Vernacular Heritage for Sustainable Architecture (VerSus) project (2014–2016) (Correia, Dipasquale, and Mecca 2011 ; Correia, Carlos, and Rocha 2014 ; Correia, Dipasquale, and Mecca 2014 ); the Living and Visiting European Vernacular World Heritage (3DPAST) project (Dipasquale, Correia, and Mecca 2020 ); the Coremans Spanish research project (Mileto and Vegas 2017 ) RESTAPIA, dealing with the conservation and restoration of historical rammed-earth heritage (Mileto et al. 2018 ); and the SEISMIC-V: Earthquake-Resistant Vernacular Culture in Portugal project developed under the National Foundation for Science and Technology in Portugal (Correia, Lourenço, and Varum 2015 ) should be highlighted. Other project results were published in Italy, France, Germany, Greece, and other countries. These projects were publicly funded following highly competitive contests, and, as a direct result, the publications were freely available online. This is very important, as books, especially conference proceedings, are often very expensive and consequently not widely disseminated in an area that usually has less funding than other fields.

Notably, in recent years, online publications have increasingly circulated, spreading knowledge more rapidly and broadly and increasing the dissemination of research on earthen vernacular architecture. Publications in regions other than Europe, such as China (Shao, Jakhelln, and Correia 2019 ), Latin America (Correia et al. 2016a , b ; Correia, Guerrero, and Crosby 2016 ), and Arab countries (Pradines 2018 ), are now also a reality. It is the case in. These contributions are often written only in national languages and therefore are not widely accessible, but it is important to register the significant recent increase in activity in such publications. Additionally, there has been an effort to publish in English to increase the dissemination.

The research area is evolving from merely descriptive to interdisciplinary, analytical, and even critical approaches. Contributions that in the past focused mainly on local building cultures and more general research areas related mainly to quality, single building techniques, and material characteristics have developed into a more articulated and enriched research area that incorporates studies on building sustainability (e.g., VERSUS project) and digitalisation (e.g., 3DPAST project).

Foreseeing the potential of gathering field specialists and converging aims and goals on the stated problems in a more consolidated approach, the Mediterra 2009: 1st Mediterranean Conference on Earth Architecture was an important milestone for a supranational study on earthen architecture (Achenza, Correia, and Guillaud 2009 ). Based on several preliminary research activities, Mediterra 2009 extended the target audience beyond experts and academics and focused on political and administrative agents, aspiring to a more operative result of the protection and conservation of the related heritage (Achenza et al. 2006 ). At a European level, this is reflected by the Terra (In)cognita projects and the subsequent related publications, which are an example of an attempt to establish an overall state of the art of traditional earthen building techniques in Europe (in Terra Incognita I) and of earthen architecture in the European Union (in Terra Incognita II).

Earthen vernacular architecture has expanded into new fields of interest and highly specialised subjects related to history and conservation. The aim is to acquire better energy efficiency in historical buildings and to suggest an adequate level of transformation to satisfy the new comfort requirements. Therefore, many contributions are focusing on the industrialisation of processes (productive and constructive) and general performance improvements in traditional materials and techniques. Many contributions are also concentrating on the conjunction of earth/sustainability and discussing different levels, including global, of concerns about climate change, natural risk assessments, and, more recently, the pandemic.

Finally, it is important to note that the theme of the global digitalisation process has been introduced into many scientific papers that focus on new approaches to the documentation of the built environment: 3D data, GIS, BIM, HBIM, and laser scanning are tools commonly used to map and acquire digitalised data concerning earthen heritage (Campiani, Lingle, and Lercari 2019 ; Lercari 2019 ; Achenza and Cocco 2015 ). This type of contribution will elevate proceedings, chapters, and articles as the most usual information format, validating their scientific rigor and reinforcing the disciplinary autonomy of the field, which will be the determinant of the next step. On the other hand, the stated format has also contributed to the fragmentation of information sources, minimising the impact of their contribution despite their quality and creating overqualified circles with little interdisciplinary interest (Bendakir 2009 ).

4 Advances in the technical characterisation of earthen materials and systems

‘Earthen Construction: A comprehensive guide’ (1994), originally published in 1989 as Traité de construction en terre from CRATerre, is consensually considered a turning point in the contemporary approach to earthen material and technology research. Comprising a set of previously published pedagogical materials to complement the CRATerre-EAG specific formations, the publication was collected and developed by Hugo Houben and Hubert Guillaud. It constitutes a technical synthesis of didactic purposes, of simple and objective communication. It is framed within a paradigm change that aimed to establish scientific validation for earthen material characterisation, refuting the exclusively empirical dimension of previous documents and clearly motived by the generic technological prejudice against traditional materials and techniques that was internationally apparent during the second half of the 20th century.

To confirm its authority in the field, it can be compared with more recent examples, such as Laurence Keefe’s (2005) work, which seems to follow the same orientation, revealing an overall structure very similar to the earliest CRAterre documents. In this case, the development of issues concerning technical conservation in particular, with an important contribution regarding the identification of failure, constitutes the final chapters of the publication. Another transition in this work is the methodological and scientific rigor of the contents,

This category, widely enhanced by the breakthrough in experimental studies in the 2000s, has been justified by two main circumstantial objectives: 1- to develop compatible construction solutions for interventions in traditional earthen buildings, namely, preserving their physical identity, and 2- to consider more eco-friendly alternatives to high-carbon construction materials. The two objectives are commonly grouped under the purpose of understanding their potential/conflict within the actual construction parameters and are regularly presented in a comparative approach to industrial production materials and composites, namely, concrete.

In recent years, researchers and professionals, motivated by the recognised lack of information, have compiled information on the mechanical properties of earth materials and the structural behaviour of earthen structures. This type of structure presents important fragilities that can endanger its structural behaviour and its inhabitants. Earthen structures generally present a low compression strength and a brittle behaviour in tension and shear. In addition, earthen structures frequently have an inadequate foundation, geometric irregularities, and ineffective connections between walls and floor or roof components. The typical high mass of these structures may generate important inertia forces under seismic action, which, in combination with the material and structural properties, may result in deficient seismic behaviours (Minke 2003 ; Miccoli, Mueller, and Fontana 2014 ).

Earth properties vary from place to place; therefore, the mechanical properties of earthen structures will vary accordingly to the location of materials extraction. Mechanical material characterisation has been conducted in different countries on the basis of traditional materials and local construction techniques and methods. The lack of consolidated standard testing procedures has created difficulties in comparing the test results obtained with different materials, specimen preparation procedures, construction techniques, and methodologies of different regions. Varum et al. ( 2021 ) present a collection of experimental and numerical developments related to the structural characterisation and seismic retrofitting of adobe. A compendium of national and international normative documents and standards can be found in Silveira et al. ( 2021 ). For example, for adobe characterisation, there is strong variability in the test procedures concerning specimen size, treatment of specimens before testing, platen restraint, application of correction factors, type of test rate (strength or velocity), admissible limit values, etc. Nevertheless, important research has been conducted on the material and its monolithic and masonry characterisation, using material from existing constructions or manufacturing it using traditional methods. Representative values of compressive strength, strain at peak stress, modulus of elasticity, Poisson ratio, and other factors for adobe testing conducted in different countries are provided in Silveira et al. ( 2021 ). Additionally, adobe masonry values for aspect ratio, compressive strength, tensile strength, mortar properties, deformations registered, modulus of elasticity, and Poisson ratios are compiled in Oliveira et al. ( 2021 ).

Asprone et al. ( 2016 ) tested single-leaf adobe wallets, Silveira et al. ( 2015 ) performed experimental tests with five full-scale adobe panels, Miccoli et al. ( 2015 ) produced and tested earth block masonry panels, Vargas-Neumann ( 1993 ) conducted a parametric study for rammed-earth walls, and Bui et al. ( 2008 ) studied a rammed-earth load-bearing wall and compressed earth blocks (CEBs), among many other studies of earthen structures. The composition of the soil, additives used (straw, fibres, etc.), mortar employed, conservation state, level of damage, and exposition time play important roles in the results. However, with the experimental tests, stress-strain curves of the material are obtained, which leads to designing constitutive equations to be used in numerical modelling. Moreover, failure modes are identified, which allows the specification of more effective structural rehabilitation, retrofitting, and strengthening strategies.

There are many examples of the use of different reinforcement solutions adopted in practice since prehistoric times, for instance, in Peru, an earthquake-prone country (Varum et al. 2021 ). More recently, different studies have characterised the efficiency of those solutions. As earthen structures are very popular in many low-income regions, specific research has been conducted to identify low-cost and low-tech strengthening techniques (Dowling and Samali 2009 ; Tolles 2009 ). Internal strengthening systems, using, for example, grout injections or bed-joint reinforcement, can improve the behaviour of masonry panels. External strengthening systems, in addition to improving the mechanical properties of the structural components, allow the bonding of those components, improving the overall structural behaviour. The literature provides examples of this type of strengthening using rope and cane-rope grid systems, timber caging, ferro-cement-like strengthening systems, steel tensioners, synthetic and natural polymer grids, and car tire straps (Parisi et al. 2021 ; Blondet and Aguillar 2007 ).

Nevertheless, despite the extensive research already conducted, further research is needed to support the definition, design, and detailing of solutions that may allow the existing earthen heritage to be adequately preserved. Additionally, it is relevant to underline the few processes of comprehensive literature reviews that have been undertaken. For example, the ‘Terra Literature Review: An Overview of Research in Earthen Architecture Conservation’ (Avrami, Guillaud, and Hardy 2008 ) was a complement to the GAIA project, which consisted of an exception in the international panorama.

5 Protection of the earthen built environment

When approached as an objective, this category can be interpreted as a transversal concern, since the bottom-line common purpose is to endorse the perpetuation of this traditional built culture. Awareness of the technological specificity of earthen construction and its traditional features within a specific cultural context is a significant part of the literature. Although this trend of contributions is chronologically irregular and has had diverse impacts, it has been maturing alongside the cultural heritage concept and its specific technical components. A good example is Dethier’s ‘Habiter la terre. L’art de bâtir en terre crue’ (2019), which proclaimed the need to protect not only examples of international value recognition and their techniques and procedures but also their technological evolution into present valid solutions.

Nevertheless, most of the literature is not so ambitious and merely addresses a geographical contextualisation of a specific recognisable heritage-built asset, correlating the earthen built environment with its exceptional attributes. This condition, when coincident with UNESCO World Heritage sites, can be easily traced with the outstanding universal value interpretation. This can be confirmed by the broad extension of studies of buildings such as the Great Mosque of Djenné or the Fujian tulous, to name only some of the most emblematic and recognisable earthen constructions (Correia et al. 2016a , b ; Correia, Guerrero, and Crosby 2016 ; Joffroy 2012 ; Jaquin, Augarde, and Gerrard 2008 ). This type of information currently constitutes more than 70% of earthen heritage data sources.

The increased number of earthen properties listed as World Heritage in recent years contributes to the dissemination of knowledge about such sites and is important for their protection. There are 161 earthen heritage sites classified by UNESCO (last updated in 2019), which represent 14% of the World Heritage List (UNESCO 2020 ; Joffroy 2012 ). Granting earthen architectural heritage universal value is not only an acknowledgement of its importance as historical evidence but also a way of engaging local communities in the relevance of their heritage as a cultural legacy. With this in mind, the important role of local communities in the protection and preservation of built heritage is a subject that has attracted the attention of international committees in recent years. The World Heritage Convention (in 2002) defined five strategic objectives to be developed and implemented in the long term, known as the 5 C’s. The last ‘C’ was added later (in 2007), and it stands for ‘Community’, referring to the aim of engaging local communities in the process of decision-making in a conservation project. This aspect was later reiterated by the Kyoto Vision (2012), which stated that communities, in particular, should be empowered to harness the benefits of heritage to society through specific awareness-raising initiatives, skills-development programs, and the establishment of networks. They should be fully involved in management and conservation activities, including reducing risks associated with disasters and climate change (UNESCO 2012 ).

Vernacular heritage, and particularly earthen vernacular buildings, has a strict connection with local communities. As stated in the Charter on the Built Vernacular Heritage (1999), the appreciation and successful protection of the vernacular heritage depend on the involvement and support of the community, continuing use, and maintenance (ICOMOS 1999 ). Owing to awareness of this important bond between local people and earthen buildings, an important conference entitled ‘The Conservation of Decorated Surfaces on Earthen Architecture’ was organised by the Getty Conservation Institute in 2004. The main focus was on not only the preservation of materials and decorative techniques but also the continuity of know-how and traditions (Rainer and Rivera 2006 ).

However, despite the relevance of communities in the protection of earthen architecture, the body of literature related to this research area was scarce until recent years. In most cases, it was specific to a particular heritage site (e.g., CERKAS and GCI 2016 ; Bertagnin and Sidi 2014 ). The connection of local people and earthen buildings is one of the many characteristics of this type of heritage. It is also one of the distinctive factors when earthen heritage is compared to the other types of monuments and buildings. International committee should give special emphasis to this issue so that specific guidelines can be drawn to develop a holistic methodology within the conservation framework.

Some authors have invested in more operative studies in efforts to develop explicit contributions to the field of earthen architecture conservation. In this group, the main effort is to justify the particularity of the field, which is strongly marked by its intrinsic material vulnerability and rapid loss of knowledge transmission. Initiatives for collecting traditional practices related to construction techniques have been one of the main sources of studies on earthen vernacular construction. From the earlier publications and systematisation of information performed by CRAterre (Houben and Guillaud 1995 ) to more recent data collection, such as the Terra Europae book (Correia, Dipasquale, and Mecca 2011 ), the Versus project (Correia, Carlos, and Rocha 2014 ; Correia, Dipasquale, and Mecca 2014 ), and the Coremans project (Mileto and Vegas 2017 ). In addition to construction techniques, other authors have developed a different line of research, focusing on products and materials used for the protection and conservation of earthen heritage (Joffroy 2005 ; Checa and Cristini 2012 ; Correia 2016 ; Vissac et al. 2017 ). This expertise is of extreme importance in the context of earthen vernacular architecture preservation and is outlined through its unique characteristics. The conservation community should pay more attention to this approach.

6 Earthen building heritage conservation

Finally, in what is specifically regarded as the conservation of earthen architectural heritage, two main knowledge gaps can be detected in the literature—the lack of conservation theory as a background for earthen heritage interventions and the need for a clear understanding of the values and significance of a place. These two interlocking aspects contribute immensely to less conscious conservation actions and the implementation of methodologies that do not follow the basic principles of heritage intervention.

Consequently, common failures in earthen architecture conservation can be attributed to the lack of a conservation theory framework. Even though the subject of earthen heritage conservation has been addressed broadly in the literature, the main focus has not yet been on conservation theory. The main highlighted research themes are commonly related to practices and methods. As a result, few publications about conservation theory (Warren 1993 , 1999 ; ICOMOS 1999 ; López-Manzanares and Mileto 2001 ; Correia 2016 ), as well as few papers (Jokilehto 2003 ; Correia and Fernandes 2006 ; Correia 2007b ), can be cited.

The importance of applying conservation theory to the particularities of each heritage field intervention was mentioned by Feilden and Jokilehto ( 1998 ). Additionally, Brock-Nannestad ( 2000 ) described conservation theory as a well-founded action regarding the survival of the physical entity for present and future visitors. Problems such as authenticity before and after treatment must be handled in such a way that the professionals who are responsible for decision-making and for carrying out the decisions may feel assured that they have managed these matters conscientiously and responsibly. As Brock-Nannestad ( 2000 ), 22 mentioned, there must be no doubt of the consequences of an action (or its omission).

In parallel, the assessment of the heritage value and significance of a place can guide decision-making since it defines priorities of intervention and respects all tangible and intangible features. A building or monument should be observed from an overall perspective, where not only the physical state but also incorporating a widespread understanding of all conditions that make that place unique is the main priority, embodying all conservation principles. The assessment of significance in earthen architecture has been addressed in the literature by a few authors (e.g., Correia and Walliman 2014 ; Correia 2016 ; Mileto and Vegas 2017 ) but still requires more awareness and development from the conservation community.

In the last 20 years, the creation of committees such as ISCEAH-ICOMOS and international programmes, such as WHEAP from UNESCO, has demonstrated the impact of earthen heritage on a global scale and the efforts that have been made to promote, create awareness of, and protect earthen architecture. However, specific regulations have still not been produced, and such an effort is crucial not only to adopt a strategic plan for earthen heritage sites but also to generate more homogeneous concepts of intervention criteria. As Correia stated: A thorough literature review confirms that earthen architecture did not have specific Charters, norms, principles, documents, nor international recommendations developed by ICOMOS or UNESCO. There are only recommendations produced at the end of each Terra conference. Therefore, there is a need for further research in order to suggest specific recommendations for the preservation of earthen architectural heritage (Correia 2016 , 88).

The Terra conferences started in 1972 with the 1st International Conference on the Conservation of ‘Mud-brick’ (Adobe) Monuments, held in Yazd, Iran (Correia 2016 ). Since then, eleven more conferences have been held in different countries. These conferences are organised under the aegis of ISCEAH-ICOMOS, and depending on the country, different partners are involved. Specifically, regarding the last three Terra conferences – Terra 2008, held in Bamako (Mali); Terra 2012, held in Lima (Peru); and Terra 2016, held in Lyon (France) – interesting conclusions can be drawn about the number of lecture topics and the evolution of subjects and themes (Joffroy, Guillaud, and Sadozaï 2017 ; Correia et al. 2012 ; Rainer, Rivera, and Gandreau 2011 ). Table  1 shows the number and typology of research areas.

The results of the three selected conferences show that the number of lectures on the conservation topic was reduced. This may be due to a greater focus on topics and themes such as local knowledge, intangible values, new earthen architecture, education and training, and standards and guidelines. Materials characterisation and innovation is the topic with a higher number of lectures, which is not surprising since it is the most developed research related to earthen construction due to higher involvement of engineering and material sciences scholars in recent years. In this quantitative analysis, topic was labelled ‘interventions (case studies)’ only when the authors mentioned a specific earthen heritage site and the steps of the associated conservation intervention (with indications of methods, products, and procedures).

Considering this analysis, the recommendations and dissemination of scientific work presented in the Terra conferences are not enough for the implementation of global guidelines for the conservation of earthen buildings. Nevertheless, the principles and ethics already established in the existing charters and regulations can (and should) be applied to earthen conservation projects. It is also evident that there has been an evolution, from the Athens and Venice charters to the present day, of concepts and notions of what is heritage, the diversity of cultural aspects that surround it, tangible and intangible values, the importance of preservation and maintenance, and the involvement of the community as well as the review of conservation principles such as compatibility, reversibility, authenticity, integrity, unity, and minimum intervention.

In a recent conference held in Florence in 2018 by ICOMOS entitled ‘Conservation Ethics Today’ (Schädler-Saub and Szmygin 2019 ), several interesting new approaches to conservation practices and principles were addressed, namely, the meaning of ethics in the conservation and restoration of heritage today; the importance of interdisciplinary cooperation in the field of heritage; present-day values: use-value, artistic and newness values, and social values; and the abandonment of the typical Eurocentric position in perceptions and preservation of cultural heritage in favour of a broader view of diverse meanings and traditions of conservation and restoration in other parts of the world. This updated vision of current conservation values and principles represents the most recent guideline, which can also be used as a referential framework for earthen heritage.

Another important step regarding the conservation of earthen heritage is the uniformisation of the terminology. In the literature of case studies, there is generally an identification of the main factors that contribute to earthen material degradation, but the deterioration patterns are usually too general. Sometimes, when presenting decay phenomena, there is a misunderstanding of factors and pathologies. Terms such as damage (Mileto and Vegas 2017 ), degradation and dirt (Vegas, Mileto, and Cristini 2014 ), weakness, loss of bonding, alterations (Rocha 2012 ), vulnerability (Bertagnin and De Antoni 2012 ), surface loss, stains (Graciani et al. 2012 ), parasite vegetation (Orihuela and Castillo-Martínez 2012 ), and exfoliation and cracking (Li et al. 2011 ) are examples of a lack of homogeneity in identifying decay phenomena. Additionally, the descriptions tend to be too vague and brief, drawing more attention to materials characterisation and the intervention itself.

ICOMOS-ISCEAH recently published a glossary of earthen material deterioration patterns (ISCEAH 2021 ). This important document reveals how the scientific approach to earthen heritage conservation has been developing and responds to the need to harmonise degradation terms related to this research area. Before the ICOMOS-ISCEAH glossary, glossaries were developed by CRATerre, GCI, ICCROM, and UNESCO, but only for specific interventions in earthen heritage sites. There is also an online glossary for earthen architecture terminology, but the terms are used mainly for different areas of earthen construction (Dachverband Lehm e.V n.d. ). Since this glossary is very recent, there are still no references to the use of this tool in the literature. Therefore, some authors have proposed filling out a form to describe sources and causes of current damage and dividing pathologies into groups – material, structural, surface damage, atmospheric agents, and anthropic (Canivell 2012 ; Mileto, Vegas, and Cristini 2012 ).

The importance of a common and shared language to describe the typologies of degradation mechanisms specific to earthen heritage is shown by the fact that its absence has resulted in scarce initial characterisations that can lead to the misinterpretation of real decay phenomena. Consequently, treatments and products can be used incorrectly, or sometimes used excessively, when preventive measurements could have been enough.

7 Conclusions

The area of heritage conservation in earthen architecture constitutes a broad and heterogeneous body of knowledge whose specificity paradoxically contrasts with the antiquity of such practices.

Essays on the categorisation of associated contributions are still limited when considering the extent of the volume of work on the topic. Of these, excluding the bibliographies of recent Ph.D. projects, most refer to the framework of institutional initiatives intended to promote international awareness, where the language of the document is always a relevant condition.

The evolution of this literary production demonstrates a progressive systematisation based on work carried out in the area of material characterisation and associated with a pedagogical objective, among which the contributions of Craterre-ENSAG from the 1980s onwards stand out.

Although monographic work on geographical circumscription has always been present as an object of study, publications of research projects and scientific conferences have become the dominant format and have increased exponentially since the turn of the century.

In recent years, the conservation of earthen architecture heritage has benefited from structural behavioural studies in the more technical aspects and has experienced a wide spectrum of applications to the suitability of material intervention.

Accompanying this trend, the evidence of a conceptual approach with greater specificity is also confirmed, demonstrating convergence in the area of ​​conservation theory with direct repercussions in heritage charts and other international reference documents.

Far from thematic exhaustion, the area has shown an openness to meet the most recent challenges, exploring delicate areas such as environmental and cultural sustainability and exposing strong concern for the importance of involving communities in such processes and the regeneration of the principles of the construction tradition.

Regarding the referential framework, this paper consolidates the perspective of general 5-point categorisations of the earthen vernacular heritage based on specific paradigmatic moments, which have been widely perceived as unrelated contributions. This nonlinear interpretation has been responsible for unbalanced literature production; more focus has been placed on the object of study documentation than on problematic evolution. This article claims the importance of consubstantiating a theoretical common ground beyond technical characterisation.

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article (and its supplementary information files).

Abbreviations

ICOMOS Scientific Committee on Earthen Architectural Heritage

Vernacular Architecture International Committee

Vernacular Heritage for Sustainable Architecture

Historic Building Information Modeling

World Heritage Earthen Architecture Programme

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Carlos, G., Ribeiro, T., Achenza, M. et al. Literature review on earthen vernacular heritage: contributions to a referential framework. Built Heritage 6 , 15 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43238-022-00061-1

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• Vernacular heritage
• Earthen architecture
• Conservation

Vernacular Architecture: Ghana

Vernacular Architecture of Ghana  highly contributes to sustainable or green buildings . Vernacular architecture is something that has been a part of human evolution . Adobes evolved when humans tried to protect themselves by building using materials available in hand and are found around them. It has lesser impacts on the earth and its environment as they are eco-friendly. Vernacular materials and construction techniques are proven to consume less energy when compared to other materials of the modern world.  For all these facts, the world is taking a look back on the vernacular styles and methods to adopt them into their living and practices. 

Ghana , a country in West Africa , is known for its various vernacular construction and techniques. Architects of this country constantly strive to adapt and develop building crafts from nature to keep their cultural dogmas alive forever. The architecture of Ghana can be divided into three zones, namely northern, middle and southern zones, as they have distinctive materials and construction techniques of their own.

Materials Used

Materials play a vital role in making the world sustainable and eco -friendly. vernacular architecture- to break it down is simply using the available materials in and around the locality for construction purposes, thus, reducing the travel cost and the pollution caused, resource conservation like coal and fuel,etc. Below is the list of materials used popularly in Ghana Architecture. 

The fast-growing bamboo, known for its high tensile strength and low weight, is widely found in Ghana with 25 identified species of native and foreign. Bamboo is made into scaffolding, furniture , panels and boards. In the northern part of Ghana, it is used as a wall structure. It reduces the cost of construction and transportation and is renewable, making it eco-friendly. 

Timber is an asset to Ghana for its abundance and is exported to various countries. Its use in Ghana takes the form of both structural and non-structural members: sawn wood, veneer sheets, particle boards, and plywood for both export and indigenous use and as walls and structural frames as structural members. It is known for its durability, fire resistance, and attractive appearance. 

Clay bricks are a widely used vernacular material in Ghana. Clay particles are coated with a thin film of water molecules which helps them to balance out the exterior and interior temperature of the buildings. They are environment friendly, locally available, need less manpower, and are energy-efficient materials. It has become one of the most commonly opted materials for suitable or green buildings.  

Laterites are all soils and rocks that are reddish-brown due to the residual and non-residual soil of weathered rocks containing rich iron and aluminum. Laterite is one of the best vernacular materials as it is cheap and eco-friendly. As it has greater water holding capacity, it is used for flooring for homes, fills for foundation, and bases for roads. It can also be moulded into bricks, and because of its natural thermal nature, it acts as a coolant to buildings . 

This material is used for roofing of various types like the double-pitched, gable-ended, hipped, conical or hemispherical. Thatch is a type of grass that is loosely bundled with twine. It can withstand winds and scour. It is used to reduce heat while using solar radiation.

Construction Techniques

Construction techniques may be indigenious to the local community or some techniques are found universal. Techniques of construction vary as the materials that are found around the locality vary. People learn to use the materials in different ways. Below listed are the techniques used by the Ghana people for construction purposes. 

Wattle and Daub

Wattle and Daub is a popular construction technique in vernacular architecture. It’s a method in which the earth from the site is plastered on skeletal frames acting as structural members and walls of the houses. The horizontal strips are usually made of timber that knit to vertical posts. Ghana’s vernacular architecture slightly differs in this methodology. The site or the profile of the house finalized is marked on the ground using pegs and strings. Later the earth from the marked places of pegs is dug out, and vertical posts are inserted with stone rammed at the base to hold firmly in place. 

Wooden strips are interlaced horizontally and vertically, atop which laterite balls are pressed of thickness ranging from 6 to 9 inches, for protection from harsh weather, insects, and animals. The roof is of palm thatch. This construction method is widely found in the rainforest regions of Ghana.

Adobe Construction

Earth construction, otherwise known as adobe construction, is one of the oldest techniques that have travelled with us for it provides economic and environmental benefits. It is said that 30% of the world’s population live in earth construction houses found most commonly in developing countries and rural areas. It requires less manpower, doesn’t require skilled labour, and reduces material cost as adobe is a low-cost material. 

Apart from being beneficial in the reduction of costs, it also has the added advantage of high thermal and acoustical performance. But as its walls are massive, it cannot be built in the seismic zone of Ghana as it can’t withstand earthquakes and can easily collapse. Though they seem highly economical and environmentally friendly, they have disadvantages like maintenance, constant replacement of materials. 

Timber Framed 

This technique can be found on Ghana’s coastal and forest belt and is similar to Wattle and Daub. The grid made of bamboo is laid and is infilled with mud or palm mats. This requires the skill to cut timber precisely in desired sizes and shapes for construction. This method was quite difficult compared to other methods as primaeval Ghana had no mechanical fasteners, yet the locals were skilled in erecting timber structures with their hands. 

This technique is considered one important thing to be looked upon as it uses highly environment-friendly wood with advantages like durability, fire resistance, and appearance. In the past 20 years, this timber constructed houses have reduced in Ghana as it requires skilled labour and requires frequent replacement.

Pile Dwellings

Pile dwellings are found in the wetlands or swampy areas of Ghana. They are also called floating dwellings as the structure is lifted entirely by wooden supports, protecting it from the dampness of the ground. Raffia palm trees are used to construct this stilt architecture of Ghana. The raffia posts are inserted into the dug-up holes to lift the structure five feet above the regular water level. Ventilated double roof is used for airflow. 

These kinds of constructions are initiated with the climatic conditions of the specific region in mind. They should be able to provide a free flow of vertical movement even with the changing water level underneath. The place where this kind of architecture can be found is in the western region of Ghana.  

Rammed Earth / Atakpamé Walls

A technique that is found in the northern part of Ghana where wood is not in abundance. Walls are 300 mm in thickness and have a footing of an average of 45 cm and a height of 2.5 m. Raw materials like soil, gravel, and sand are combined to form a mixture. These materials are highly non-combustible, very durable, and thermally massive. 200 mm diameter laterite balls are moulded. 

Five layers are laid separately to a height of 600 mm, each covered with palm leaves. Fan palms are used as marks for lintels. After the last course, posts are inserted at 600mm intervals to act as structural supports for the roof. If it is a flat roof, mud is the choice of material , and if it is a pitched roof, then grass or palm fronds are used. This construction can be done only by skilled locals of the region.

Anon, (n.d.). Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468227620301629 .

Anon, (n.d.). Available at: http://ghanarising.blogspot.com/2013/08/tourism-nzulezo-village-western-ghana.html .

Anon, (n.d.). Available at: https://www.culturalencyclopaedia.org/vernacular-architecture-the-indigenous-materials-and-construction-techniques-of-ghana-entry .

Anon, (n.d.). Available at: http://www.naturalbuildingblog.com/rammed-earth-houses-in-ghana/ .

Anon, (n.d.). Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wattle_and_daub_construction.jpg .

Anon, (n.d.). Available at: http://www.africavernaculararchitecture.com/ghana/ .

Anon, (n.d.). Available at: https://www.fieldstudyoftheworld.com/painted-earth-architecture-of-the-kassena-people/ .

Anon, (n.d.). Available at: https://bambubatu.com/the-best-varieties-of-bamboo-for-building-and-construction/ .

Anon, (n.d.). Available at: https://www.build-review.com/understanding-the-booming-popularity-of-timber-construction/ .

Anon, (n.d.). Available at: https://robarboring.com/how-to-build-stable-foundations-on-clay/ .

Anon, (n.d.). Available at: https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/laterite-stone-construction-23346765862.html .

Anon, (n.d.). Available at: https://hertsthatcher.com/2015/06/28/preparing-a-thatched-roof-structure/ .

Stephy is an intrigued explorer of various paradigms of Architecture, choosing writing as a catharsis to her never ending thoughts.

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Out of the Centre

Savvino-storozhevsky monastery and museum.

Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

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The Unique Burial of a Child of Early Scythian Time at the Cemetery of Saryg-Bulun (Tuva)

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Pages:  379-406

In 1988, the Tuvan Archaeological Expedition (led by M. E. Kilunovskaya and V. A. Semenov) discovered a unique burial of the early Iron Age at Saryg-Bulun in Central Tuva. There are two burial mounds of the Aldy-Bel culture dated by 7th century BC. Within the barrows, which adjoined one another, forming a figure-of-eight, there were discovered 7 burials, from which a representative collection of artifacts was recovered. Burial 5 was the most unique, it was found in a coffin made of a larch trunk, with a tightly closed lid. Due to the preservative properties of larch and lack of air access, the coffin contained a well-preserved mummy of a child with an accompanying set of grave goods. The interred individual retained the skin on his face and had a leather headdress painted with red pigment and a coat, sewn from jerboa fur. The coat was belted with a leather belt with bronze ornaments and buckles. Besides that, a leather quiver with arrows with the shafts decorated with painted ornaments, fully preserved battle pick and a bow were buried in the coffin. Unexpectedly, the full-genomic analysis, showed that the individual was female. This fact opens a new aspect in the study of the social history of the Scythian society and perhaps brings us back to the myth of the Amazons, discussed by Herodotus. Of course, this discovery is unique in its preservation for the Scythian culture of Tuva and requires careful study and conservation.

Keywords: Tuva, Early Iron Age, early Scythian period, Aldy-Bel culture, barrow, burial in the coffin, mummy, full genome sequencing, aDNA

Information about authors: Marina Kilunovskaya (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Vladimir Semenov (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Varvara Busova  (Moscow, Russian Federation).  (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Kharis Mustafin  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Technical Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Irina Alborova  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Biological Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Alina Matzvai  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected]

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Grigory Ioffe

komal choudhary

This study illustrates the spatio-temporal dynamics of urban growth and land use changes in Samara city, Russia from 1975 to 2015. Landsat satellite imageries of five different time periods from 1975 to 2015 were acquired and quantify the changes with the help of ArcGIS 10.1 Software. By applying classification methods to the satellite images four main types of land use were extracted: water, built-up, forest and grassland. Then, the area coverage for all the land use types at different points in time were measured and coupled with population data. The results demonstrate that, over the entire study period, population was increased from 1146 thousand people to 1244 thousand from 1975 to 1990 but later on first reduce and then increase again, now 1173 thousand population. Builtup area is also change according to population. The present study revealed an increase in built-up by 37.01% from 1975 to 1995, than reduce -88.83% till 2005 and an increase by 39.16% from 2005 to 2015, along w...

Elena Milanova

Land use/Cover Change in Russia within the context of global challenges. The paper presents the results of a research project on Land Use/Cover Change (LUCC) in Russia in relations with global problems (climate change, environment and biodiversity degradation). The research was carried out at the Faculty of Geography, Moscow State University on the basis of the combination of remote sensing and in-field data of different spatial and temporal resolution. The original methodology of present-day landscape interpretation for land cover change study has been used. In Russia the major driver of land use/land cover change is agriculture. About twenty years ago the reforms of Russian agriculture were started. Agricultural lands in many regions were dramatically impacted by changed management practices, resulted in accelerated erosion and reduced biodiversity. Between the natural factors that shape agriculture in Russia, climate is the most important one. The study of long-term and short-ter...

Annals of The Association of American Geographers

Land use and land cover change is a complex process, driven by both natural and anthropogenic transformations (Fig. 1). In Russia, the major driver of land use / land cover change is agriculture. It has taken centuries of farming to create the existing spatial distribution of agricultural lands. Modernization of Russian agriculture started fifteen years ago. It has brought little change in land cover, except in the regions with marginal agriculture, where many fields were abandoned. However, in some regions, agricultural lands were dramatically impacted by changed management practices, resulting in accelerating erosion and reduced biodiversity. In other regions, federal support and private investments in the agricultural sector, especially those made by major oil and financial companies, has resulted in a certain land recovery. Between the natural factors that shape the agriculture in Russia, climate is the most important one. In the North European and most of the Asian part of the ...

Ekonomika poljoprivrede

Vasilii Erokhin

Journal of Rural Studies

judith pallot

In recent decades, Russia has experienced substantial transformations in agricultural land tenure. Post-Soviet reforms have shaped land distribution patterns but the impacts of these on agricultural use of land remain under-investigated. On a regional scale, there is still a knowledge gap in terms of knowing to what extent the variations in the compositions of agricultural land funds may be explained by changes in the acreage of other land categories. Using a case analysis of 82 of Russia’s territories from 2010 to 2018, the authors attempted to study the structural variations by picturing the compositions of regional land funds and mapping agricultural land distributions based on ranking “land activity”. Correlation analysis of centered log-ratio transformed compositional data revealed that in agriculture-oriented regions, the proportion of cropland was depressed by agriculture-to-urban and agriculture-to-industry land loss. In urbanized territories, the compositions of agricultura...

Open Geosciences

Alexey Naumov

Despite harsh climate, agriculture on the northern margins of Russia still remains the backbone of food security. Historically, in both regions studied in this article – the Republic of Karelia and the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) – agricultural activities as dairy farming and even cropping were well adapted to local conditions including traditional activities such as horse breeding typical for Yakutia. Using three different sources of information – official statistics, expert interviews, and field observations – allowed us to draw a conclusion that there are both similarities and differences in agricultural development and land use of these two studied regions. The differences arise from agro-climate conditions, settlement history, specialization, and spatial pattern of economy. In both regions, farming is concentrated within the areas with most suitable natural conditions. Yet, even there, agricultural land use is shrinking, especially in Karelia. Both regions are prone to being af...

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