ISVS 11
11th International Seminar on Vernacular Settlements

Theme: Potency of the Vernacular Settlements

Today, we are passing through one of the most demanding times of history. For quite some time, we have been discovering how our planet has been falling sick, in trying to cater to the greediness of the humankind exploiting the natural resources of the earth. Unlike how the vernacular communities treated the Mother Earth with a sense of reverence, the modern communities have continuously been indifferent only to excavate the fortunes that lie underneath without recognizing how we will perish together in the pursuit of this greed. In other words, industrialization that Man invented resulting in modernity in order to seek prosperity for all has delivered great advancements to human civilization, although at an alarming cost.

Key words – Industrialization, climate change, ecology, sustainability, modernity

Without doubt, the idea of the city is an important human construct, and the processes that drive them, despite devoid of traditions, have produced innovations and human cooperation that are beyond imaginations. Needless to say, they should be promoted and sustained. Cities have endowed the richness of these advancements to some and poverty to the majority of populations, although things have been produced en-masse and goods have been available aplenty. When these material productions come to an end because the resources of the earth are finite, the modern communities will not know where to turn to, except the vernacular settlements. Thus, their huge cost to ecology has to be balanced. Indeed, only vernacular settlements seem to be able to provide that cushioning the cities and urban populations desperately need.

Key words – Cities, diversity, resilience, population, technology

Questions are enormous and they need visionary answers. For example, the machine productions over human enterprises have impoverished the world in all senses of the world, while being shielded by the seductive, yet artificial plastic ensemble it has produced. The slow-phased, hand-made crafts of the vernacular are appealing, yet will be unable to provide for the ever-increasing urban populations. Moreover, the recent outbreak of the Corona virus has brought home the fact that urbanity and the cities that we have constructed with huge populations living in crowded cities with ever-rising high rises need to be re-imagined with health and well-being at heart. There, people suffer from a lack of sense of attachment to places, being unable to construct roots and being subject to a loss of sense of home emanating from the politicization of space, culture and human wellbeing. Man is becoming ever more homeless; only living in impoverished houses, and these need to change. In the modern world, chaos and turmoil are being unleashed through human conflicts such as wars, natural disasters, pandemics and the never diminishing industrialized search for progress and well-being leading to more disorder and conflicts.

Key words – Craft, pandemic, equity, disaster, home, conflict

In contrast, vernacular settlements remain an adobe where the humankind had achieved a balanced status of civilization, culture, and above all a humanity that fosters the Mother Earth, respects Nature, and treats the fauna and flora with the sense of reverence and companionship they deserve.  

However, there is no suggestion that the vernacular settlements are an alternative to the contemporary cities. Instead, we need to imagine a condition of “hybridity” or perhaps a “collage or a fusion” where the vernacular exists in the urban and within the industrial economic reality of today. Lessons have to be learnt from the vernacular to help imagine this new form of settlement where the wholesome characteristics of the vernacular would enrich the innovations and human cooperation promoted through the urbanity of the cities. In fact, it is here that the vernacular practices are most meaningful and effective today and have the potency to absorb the shocks of the contemporary. They have the capacity to contribute to the mutual co-existence of Man and the animals and the prosperous and sustainable future settlement, Man has been searching, where he will finally make home.

Key words – Hybrid, fusion, urbanity, co-existence, co-operation, sustainable, home, potency, contemporary

In this ISVS seminar, we examine the “potency of the vernacular processes and settlements” to enable the making of such settlements and homes, in humane and culturally rich sustainable settings on the Mother Earth.

The seminar sub-themes will emerge from the contributing papers

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