Architecture

About: Architecture is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 25849 publications have been published within this topic receiving 225266 citations.

The Power of Things: Recent Studies in American Vernacular Architecture

Abstract: THE STUDY OF VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE DIFFERS FROM OTHER ASPECTS of material culture studies treated in this bibliographical issue in two ways. First, the name itself is inadequate, since an increasingly large number of apparently disparate kinds of buildings have been included under its rubric. While the term "vernacular architecture" will be novel and puzzling to many readers, it was first used in the nineteenth century by architectural theorists to refer to traditional rural buildings of the preindustrial era, buildings that were apparently the houses of yeoman farmers and that seemed not to have been "consciously" designed or affected by the intellectual and artistic currents of the Renaissance.' They were thought to be in some sense "gothic" or medieval buildings, even though many of the examples cited were built long after the Reformation. Buildings of this sort or their functional equivalents in America-the log houses of the southern mountains and other folk buildings, for example-have continued to be the principal interest of many students of vernacular architecture. In recent years, however, the term has been extended to include less pretentious examples of any current style: mass-produced, middle-class housing such as one might find in any nineteenthor twentieth-century speculative development, industrial buildings, the architecture of fast-food and other commercial franchises-virtually

Modernity in tradition: Reflections on building design and technology in the Asian vernacular

Abstract: 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. This study investigates some aspects of mainstream modernist design solutions and concepts inherent in the vernacular of Asia, particularly that of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). 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.

Building Democracy: Community Architecture in the Inner Cities

Abstract: Foreword Part 1: The Historical Background Part 2: Practice Part 3: Theory, Debate and Prospect