Climate and Contemporary Transformations of Vernacular Architecture - Interaction, Effects and Perspectives

The majority of the worlds population still live in vernacular buildings which are based on local knowledge. Climate has a significant impact on the use and evolution of local building techniques and building design. CLIMATE-Arch will focus on the processes involved in the transformation of local building techniques caused by climate and climate change. A wide range of local material resources and natural environmental conditions, and the effects of climate change, produce various kinds of technical adaptations. CLIMATE-Arch will explore these transformations and their drivers at the level of both building technology and building design, focusing on two regions in Eurasia that use a range of local building technologies.Most previous research on the impact of climate change has taken a mono-disciplinary approach, in the main not considering the processes responsible for the evolution and transformation of buildings, which principally stem from the inextricable link between material and environmental conditions. CLIMATE-Arch will break new ground by examining the factors that trigger vernacular transformation through a climate lens, combining climate research and the disciplines of architecture, engineering, natural environmental sciences and sociology.As the project will examine vernacular changes expected as a result of predicted climate change, the results will remain relevant long after the conclusion of the work. In the long term, the research of CLIMATE-Arch will be indispensable both for producing accurate scientific accounts and for establishing standards to balance conservation and modernization. The PIs extensive multi-disciplinary scientific experience makes him eminently qualified to lead CLIMATE-Arch and to coordinate the team of post-docs, PhD students and research assistant based at the Austrian Academy of Sciences Institute for Social Anthropology (ISA).