Technacular Architecture

Building to your local resources [vernacular architecture]...we used to do that exclusively. This is how "salt box" houses came about in New England and adobe homes in the southwest. Over time we could venture away from location-specific design because technology allowed for ease of building and artificial temperature control. Technology allowed us to ignore what previously dictated how it was to live in a certain area. However, our growing concern for waste has us reconsidering our local requirements and resources and now we're seeing that the future is blending the two - technology and vernacular.

A recent excellent example of this hybrid model was recently covered on Inhabitat as welll as a write up on Malcom Wells from DesignBoom - which illustrates his approach to vernacular architecture and technology as expressed via his beautiful drawings (below):

Deep-Seawater Air Conditioning System to Cool Honolulu: "

Frigid seawater pumped in from the ocean’s depths will soon help cool more than half of the buildings in Honolulu’s downtown. Honolulu Seawater Air Conditioning LLC, which is undertaking the $240 million project, expects its technology to cut the Hawaiian city’s air conditioning electricity usage by up to 75 percent while slashing carbon emissions and the use of ozone-depleting refrigerants.

Read the rest of Deep-Seawater Air Conditioning System to Cool Honolulu


Malcolm Wells: passively heated underground buildings: "
tree bridges





explanation of underground architecture
image courtesy of malcolm wells
"