Contemporary Vernacular Design

1.2What is Contemporary Vernacular Design?

Before delving further into this subject, it is important to define ‘vernacular architecture’ and ‘contemporary vernacular architecture’ for the purposes of this book. The definition and understanding of these terms have changed and evolved over time, as this section demonstrates.

Vernacular architecture, as described in the introduction, has long been understood as simple and sustainable architecture: buildings built by local people, often as a community, using local materials. People who built vernacular architecture didn’t know about ‘sustainability’, but nonetheless developed many sustainable technologies to improve their comfort on little means – something that is needed in modern buildings today. ...