Reading the research: Publications on vernacular architecture

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze the general profile of articles written on the subject of “vernacular architecture” (VA). The study integrates articles posted on the Web of Science database. In the first part of this study, all English language articles scripted between 2000 and 2018 and in the second part, articles listed under architecture category have been examined. Articles were analyzed based on their publication year, journals, categories, keywords and method and obtained data were analyzed via content-analysis method. Research findings manifest that VA is interlinked with a wide array of disciplines ranging from architecture-engineering sciences to art, archeology and geography. Once all of these categories are examined, it can be argued that, in general, local architecture is analyzed by associating it with environmental issues and building-physics subjects. Researchers claim that analyzing local production techniques and, based on these techniques, developing local, effective strategies is a salient research method. In the architecture category, the most widely-analyzed scale was detected as region scale; the most discussed location was Iran in the global scope. One of the featured titles in these studies is on the subject of thermal comfort. Another common subject in these articles is detected to be sustainability and matters related to sustainability. Aside from the subjects and concepts examined in these studies, another issue is the motives with which analyzed subjects were associated. Here, compiled data reveal that studies related to VA offer three key motives. The first one is protecting, the second one is learning and the third one is developing.