International Conference: ICAR 2015

ICAR 2015 | International Conference on Architectural Research |

conference theme: Re[Search] through Architecture

section: Innovation and Experiment

poster presentation:

venue: “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism, BUCHAREST

DATE: Friday, 27th of March 2015; PLACE: PhD’s Hall

TRADITION AND INNOVATION FACE TO FACE. AN APPLIED STUDY ON MICRO-VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE VOCABULARY IN DOBROGEA

Abstract

Do we gaze with understanding to our legacy or do we pass unaware along the vernacular? Can we still learn from our traditional architecture in the times of contemporary development and in the era of high technology? And, finally how do we build? Those are some of the essential questions of the last centuries, analytical questions which are putting in balance tradition and innovation, design and awareness.

The present study approaches the vocabulary of the traditional architecture in the Dobrogea area, from two different perspectives. The first view exposes the timed confirmed value that resides in the vernacular architecture, as a language resource for further durable operation in traditional urban tissue. The second perspective treats the same vocabulary elements as basic models in order to develop contemporary elements, capable of extended performances, but inscribed in the same linguistic family. The two perspectives tend to be complementary, basing their observation and processes on the same methodology: observation, inventory, design and ultimately reconstruction. The main study base consists in the extensive archive of Dimitrie Gusti Dobrogea – Memory of the earth, and the one to one scale models of the vernacular architecture originated from Dobrogea area.

The analysis main goal is to develop an applicable sustainable approach based on design awareness. The study restricts the analysis to the basic elements of the architecture: the closings (walls, roofs), the openings (doors, windows), the supportive isolated elements (pillars), in order to establish a small scale, a micro scale. This particular approach ultimately has a larger applicability, speaking beyond context about the human scale and its immediate correspondent. As finality, the traditional models are re-analyzed, in focusing their ability to be considered prototypes along with the implementation challenges. Thus, the detailed design of the basic vernacular vocabulary is reevaluated. In order to avoid the simple mechanism of flat interpretation by copy / paste, the design is oriented towards conscious borrowing and active reinterpretation.

In past times the traditional sustainability was a natural effect of the continuity of architectural language: types, materials, textures, colors, but paradoxically the contemporary seeks avidly for sustainability as an artificial injection. The detail in vernacular architecture is seen primarily as a living detail: a detail transformed in time by the Romanian peasant due to in situ observation. This “living property” resides in the natural materials: wood, hay, clay, soft, transformable materials with minimum energy and reduce local labor force. From the harvesting of the reed in marsh, to the processes of the drying mud brick and finally to the walls waterproofing by sticking with clay, all processes in traditional architecture have a common ground.

Ultimately the analysis points out that in this “living” property resides the genius of the detail. The materiality and texture of the vernacular becomes in this perspective the support for sustainability, durability and ecology, main aspects of a responsible design.

for the conference program see: International Conference on Architectural Research |