1 - Introduction To Vernacular Architecture - Part 1
1 - Introduction To Vernacular Architecture - Part 1
1 - Introduction To Vernacular Architecture - Part 1
Something native and unique to a specific place, created without the help of imported components and
processes, and possibly built by the individuals who occupy that particular place (AL SAYYAD 2006).
It is defined as culmination of a creative process of interpretation of building traditions, skills and
experience, which is strongly influenced by factors such as environmental conditions, material resources, social
structures, belief systems, behavioural patterns, social and cultural practices, and economic conditions of the area.
Vernacular architecture are a dynamic and creative process through which people, as active
agents, interpret past knowledge and experience to face the challenge and demands of the present.
Vernacular architecture comprises the dwellings ad al other buildings of the people. Related to
their environmental contexts and available resources they are customarily owner or community built using
traditional technologies. All form of vernacular architecture are built to meet specific needs,
accommodating the values, economies and the ways of life of the cultures that produce them. (OLIVER,97)
Architecture which has been built by the owners and occupiers or by the community itself based on local
wisdom and traditional knowledge of generations, using locally available building materials. It is inexpensive and
is designed in response to the climate and socio-cultural communities it house. It includes dwellings, public spaces
and settlements as a whole. Includes structures made by empirical builders without the intervention of professional
architects and without the use of industrial components. (Rudoskfy, 1987)
Indigenous Architecture refers to the study and practice of architecture of, for and by Indigenous or native people.
It is said to be practised in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Arctic area and many other countries
where Indigenous people have a built tradition or aspire translate or to have their cultures translated in the built
environment. This sometimes has been extended to include landscape architecture and other designs for the built
environment.
The term traditional could be extended to academic and historical buildings, which
have a specific link to the territory, but could be a pedigree architecture. But indigenous
related to architecture is a synonymous of vernacular.
KACHCHA
A Kachcha is a building made of natural materials such as mud, grass, bamboo, thatch or sticks and is therefore a
short lived structure. Since it is not made for endurance it requires constant maintenance and replacement.
PUKKA
A Pukka is a structure made of materials resistant to wear, such as forms of stone, or bricks, clay tiles, metals or
other durable materials, sometimes using mortar to bind, that does not need t be constantly maintained or
replaced. However, such structures are expensive to construct as the materials are costly and more labor is
required. A pukka may be elaborately decorated in contrast to a kuchcha.
SEMI-PUKKA
A combination of the kachcha and pukka style, has evolved as villagers have acquired the resources to add
elements constructed of the durable materials characteristics of a pukka. Architecture as always evolves as the
needs and resources of people change.
Place is a where dimension formed by people’s relationship with physical settings, individual and group activities,
and meanings. ‘Place Attachment’, ‘Place Identity’ and ‘Sense of Place’ are some concepts that could describe the
quality of people’s relationships with a place. Sense of Place usually is defined as an overarching impression
encompassing the general ways in which people feel about places, senses it, and assign concepts and values to it.
The creation or preservation of Sense of place is important in maintaining the quality of the environment as well as
the integrity of human life within it.
Primitive architecture provided a platform to discuss, architecture – which evolved from the collective idea of a
community living and expressing their beliefs and customs, thus forming a beautiful bond of understanding space
through the context of time and materiality. While most of the architecture in the rural areas is primitive and
addresses the basic fundamentals of context, climate and community participation, but Modern architecture has
fractured this very thought and mechanized spaces. Architecture in today's cities, is merely construction and display
of technology and human politics to address economic and social growth without any understanding of the
“collective”.
Society requires that architecture not only communicate the aspirations of its institutions but also fulfil their
practical needs. Differences in expression, apart from differences in planning, distinguish the forms of
architectural types ,the kinds of use , and the traditions and customs of users . When architectural forms
become the vehicles of content—in plan, elevation, and decoration—they are symbolic.