The architecture point of view

Vernacular architecture

The term "vernacular" has a linguistic origin: the latin vernaculus means "native idiom". But we frequently use linguistic analogies also in architecture: grammar, style, expression, even syntax and language are terms that may be used to analyze a building, as well as linguists analyze the structure of a text.
As a local dialect, the vernacular architecture is the local «common speech of building»  [Olivier 1997, p.xxi].
Architecture (the vernacular in particular) may be strongly influenced by climate, but the environment is not the only force that influence the form and the structure of a building. The site (e.g. the presence of water but also the presence of natural defences and physical boundaries), the most incumbent risks (those that can be reminded by people, like landslides and flood, earthquake and singular meteorological events), the economic development of a region and its effect on urbanization, the social and cultural uses (the property ownership system, the social structure, from the family and the food production, to the political organization, the dwelling stability, the rites, the traditions and the symbolic values); the available technologies (from the available materials to the available labour forces and their organization): all these factors have a strong influence on the architecture.
But «climates stimulate needs for shelter and influence local cultures, but provide the conditions of local building materials».

Climate data and variables

Air temperature

Relative Humidity

Solar power

Sky vault temperature

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Wind velocity

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Air pressure

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