Scholarly record
WHERE ARE WE GOING? CONTEMPORARY TRENDS IN CULTURE OF BUILDING
Abstract
Human dwelling construction culture has been strongly shaped over time by the characteristics of the territories and of the local people, who gradually established building methods that cumulated perfect adaptations to specific geographies and socio-economic needs. This type of construction – called later on “vernacular architecture” – was built most of the times by the same people that were using it as housing, utilizing materials found in the vicinity. This “Non-pedigreed Architecture” – renamed so by Bernard Rudofsky – has dominated the built environment until recent times, the vast majority of dwellings being found in the countryside and being built without the contribution of an architect. For more than a century now, the building game has been radically changed by the urbanization and the industrialization phenomena, by the institutional control on the construction process, and by the professionalization of actors involved in this culture. As a consequence, these phenomena and factors transformed vernacular architecture into a process devoid of economic efficiency, this invalidation leading to the strong dissolution of the vernacular building culture. Moreover, the control taken over the building process fragmented among multiple actors: architects, engineers, municipal administrators, real estate agencies, banks, insurance companies, materials manufacturers and suppliers. Globally, this control method has not improved the quality of the built environment, due to the fact that all these actors involved seldom had convergent interests. In our time, the great majority of individual homes is not dominated by an architecture assumed by architects, but by a serial construction of very large residential developments based on models validated as marketable by real estate agencies, or by a category of buildings built on the edge of the law, with the shared contribution of informal individual constructors who utilize a set of standardized materials and subassemblies, and even more often by the huge mass of agglutinated shelters found at the periphery of big cities in “slum” communities. While Habitat for Humanity reports that a population segment of 900.000 to 1.600.000 people live in such precarious structures, it is estimated that architects are directly responsible for a percentage that varies between 2% and 5% of the total mass of the global built environment.
Publication Impact Profile
Publication details
References12
Jerome P., Chiari G. and Borelli C., The Architecture of Mud: Construction and Repair Technology in the Hadhramaut Region of Yemen, APT Bulletin, vol. 30, nr. 2/3, USA, 1999, pp. 39-48;
Damluji S. S., Earth Architecture in Hadramut, South Yemen: Recent Projects 2014. Seminario Internacional Arquitectura e Identidad Local, Madrid, Spain, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O84KNf43h5Q, 2014;
Borelli C., Architecture of Mud, https://vimeo.com/50661780, USA, 1999;
Davis H., The Culture of Building, Oxford: Oxford University Press, USA, 2006;
Doxiadis C. A., Architecture in Transition, New-York: Oxford University Press, USA, 1968;
Davis M., Planet of Slums, London: Verso, Great Britain, 2006;
„The World's Largest Slums: Dharavi, Kibera, Khayelitsha & Neza,” Habitat for Humanity, https://www.habitatforhumanity.org.uk/blog/2017/12/the-worldslargest-slums-dharavi-kibera-khayelitsha-neza/. accessed 11 05 2019;
Rapoport, A., Spontaneous settlements as vernacular design, Spontaneous shelter: International perspectives and prospects, USA, 1988, pp 51-77;
Turner J. F. C., Barriers and channels for housing development in modernizing countries, Journal of the American Institute of Planners, vol.33, USA, 1967, pp 167-181;
Datta K., Jones G. A., Housing and Finance in Developing Countries, Routledge, , Great Britain, 1999, pp 12;
UN-Habitat PSUP Team Nairobi, Slum Almanac 2015-2016. Tracking Improvement in the Lives of Slum Dwellers, Kenya, 2016, pp 11;
Saleh Al-Daily, W. M., An Exploration of State and Non-State Actor Engagement in Informal Settlement Governance in the Mahwa Aser Neighborhood and Sana'a City, Yemen. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA, 2013, pp 326;
View or Download full articleAccess options
SWS access login
Login as SWS Scientific CommitteeLogin as SWS Scientific PartnerLogin as SWS AuthorAuthors and approved SWS contributors will read and export their own linked papers after identity matching by SWS profile, email and SGEM GlobalID.
For librarian assistance: [email protected]
Purchase Instant Access
- Article can be downloaded after successful payment.
- Article may be used according to SWS library access terms.
- Article cannot be redistributed.