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Just Folks Designing: Vernacular Designers and the Generation of Form Author(s): Thomas Hubka Source: JAE, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Feb., 1979), pp. 27-29 Published by: on behalf of the Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Association of Collegiate Schools of

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JUST FOLKS DESIGNING VERNACULAR DESIGNERS AND THE GENERATION OF FORM

Thomas Hubka teaches at Oregon, where he got his masters. He did his undergraduate work at Carnegie-Mellon and recently enjoyed a faculty grant to study the urban environment of Kracow. For a more specific and applied view of his interest in vernacular architecture, writefor a copy of his article "The Connected Farm Buildings of South-Western Maine"from Pioneer America, Box 22230, Baton Rouge, LA 70893.

Folk builders are not often given the status of architectural designers. This is un- fortunate because the folk builders have rigorous, highly structured design methods for generating and refining spatial form. Although folk design methods differ from those employed by modern architec- tural designers their object is the same- the conversion of ideas into spatial form.

The fundamental principles of folk or vernacular design methods are embodied in tradition. In order -to understand the folk design method one must understand how architectural forms are generated within a system of thought dominated by tradition. By working within tradition the folk designer explores a much narrower design field than a modern designer, but he is no less creative than his modern coun- terpart. His creative method' however, is different.

The intent of this paper is to outline the general strategy by which folk builders de- sign structures. It is my hope that an understanding of the design methods of these architects will provide a valuable means of enriching our own methods of form generation in architecture. The hypotheses of this paper are an extension of my research of folk builders in northern New England.I

Misconceptions About Folk Design Method

Folk builders are also folk designers. Since most vernacular architectural scholarship tends to focus attention on buildings (of- ten because the designers are either anonymous or deceased) it is not surpris- ing that the design skills of these architects should remain largely unrecorded. When a design method is allowed to folk builders, it is often couched in explanations amount- ing to naturalistic determinism-as if these people, like birds, naturally make shelter.2 Although no serious study of folk architec- ture could negate the design role of folk builders, the myth of the spontaneous ver- nacular builder seems to be an idea with wide acceptance in our culture, especially among architectural designers.

It seems important to begin this study by outlining a group of pervasive misconcep- tions about folk architecture before analyz- ing the design method of its builder.

Mystical Causation and Folk Architec-

ture: The myth of naturalistic determinism is sometimes perpetrated by the strongest advocates for vernacular studies. Bernard Rudofsky's charming and energetic books are typical of many surface investigations of vernacular architecture3-strong on ex- otic images and weak on critical analysis of building and design method. While studies like these are well-intentioned, they ac- tually serve to delimit the real ac- complishments of vernacular builders by ascribing to their designs and buildings misconceptions about their purpose and method; such as the exaggerated notion of intuitive (divine?) genius and method- ologies amounting to mystical causation. Consequently the reader is left with pretty pictures but no explanation for how ver- nacular buildings were designed.

Historical Elitism and Folk Architec- ture: Vernacular architecture examples have always suffered the neglect of the ar- chitectural history establishment, and it is no surprise that the design method of ver- nacular builders would also go unnoticed and unrecorded. Even when scholarship is directed at vernacular examples, it usually assumes the elitist metaphor: high style leaders and folk followers.4 This platonic model hypothesizes that folk designers merely copy, often crudely, the forms of high style or elite architecture. Although there are good folk architectural investiga- tions to suggest otherwise,s the general ac- ceptance of this model has often prevented a serious appraisal of folk design method. (Folk and elite architecture overlaps on many levels and influences occur both ways, but certainly not only one way.)

Folk designers have seldom been granted design method because most re- searchers have failed (or never attempted) to place a human designing mind behind these structures and failed to see folk ar- chitecture as the product of real people making real design decisions. Frequently this neglect can be traced to a contempo- rary desire to perceive folk architecture through a narrow aesthetic or moralistic filter; ie, looking at folk architecture to confirm hypotheses about simple life styles, pure unadorned forms, or whol- istic/naturalistic environments.

Primitive Societies and Folk Architec- ture: In most architectural definitions, primitive architectural examples would be placed at one end of a vast folk/vernacular

architecture scale. Although today primi- tive buildings make up only a very small and exotic portion of vernacular architec- ture examples, they are usually given a dis- proportionate emphasis in the total spec- trum of vernacular buildings world wide.

Vernacular architecture is found in all the world's cultures; ancient and modern, and, most importantly, it continues throughout the world today in various rela- tionships to modern world culture-cer- tainly not only the most primitive relation- ship. Many vernacular cultures exist in some relationship to a larger, or dominant culture-as do all American folk cultures today.

The application of the word "primitive" to vernacular architectural studies is unfor- tunate because it tends to imply that ver- nacular cultures are stagnant and unchang- ing. This is particularly unfortunate be- cause it tends to mask and fossilize the generative design method of its builders.

Unself-conscious Designers and Folk Ar- chitecture: Most contemporary architec- tural writers have used or implied the term unself-conscious to describe vernacular design and building practices. (Christo- pher Alexander's book, Notes on the Synthesis of Form has been one of the most influential in this respect.) While the term is a productive means to exaggerate the weaknesses in contemporary design pro- cess (the gap between design method and building practice today) it has come to imply a naive spontaneity about the work- ing method of vernacular designers and tends to conceal the thinking and design- ing mind behind the architecture called vernacular.

Vernacular building method is only un- self-conscious to the degree that the design system is not articulated in drawings or written words, and is not continuously analyzed by its practitioners. It is, how- ever, a systematic method of design facili- tated by a highly structured, traditional mental language (or architectural grammar). The tacitly accepted notion of the unself-conscious designer is a major stumbling block in the path toward under- standing vernacular builders as designers with real methods of going about designing and building.

The Owner and the Designer in Folk Ar- chitecture: One of the most pervasive mis- 27

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Generative process in vernacular design method

conceptions about folk architecture is the myth of the spontaneous owner-builder. In the majority of Indo-European vernacu- lar societies, where information is avail- able, the frequently complex building tra- ditions are maintained by highly trained individuals in their societies (called ar- chitects by our own standards). It is easy to misinterpret the role of folk builders be- cause in many societies the owner or occu- pant is also an active participant in the building process. Unfortunately this col- lective building practice tends to conceal the fundamentally important role of the vernacular builder as designer. The wide- spread acceptance of this notion has the obvious side effect of belittling the creat- ive design abilities of folk builders by mak- ing their contribution seem insignificant or available to just about anyone in the soci- ety.

Purpose and Method in Folk Design

Folk design method is circumscribed by habit and tradition. In order to understand this method, folk design process must be analyzed according to the way "thinking traditionally" structures the designer's ap- proach to problem solving. From a modern perspective, a design strategy relying on tradition and habit might seem like a poor method for creative problem solving and form generation, but this is probably only because contemporary designers have often selected change or the search for new form as a starting point for design study. Folk designers start with the unchanging and accommodate change. They are not less creative than contemporary designers; they just create differently.

Tradition in Folk Design: Folk design method is carried exclusively in the human mind and maintained within its culture by tradition-the handing down of informa- tion by word of mouth, observation, repli- cation and apprenticeship. It is distin- guished from modern design process be- cause it is a non-literary method of design which stores its complex traditions, not in treatises and drawings, but in the minds of its builders. To understand this method one must be prepared to hypothesize about the way the human mind works to transform tradition into complex architec- tural designs.

The folklorist Henry Glassie has de- veloped several models for interpreting the design methods of folk builders. By borrowing theory from linguistic philoso-

phy, semiology, anthropology and folklore, he has constructed models for understanding the generative aspects of the human mind within traditional think- ing.6 In his interpretations an abstracted mental language of basic rules and rela- tionships is manipulated by the folk de- signer according to cultural principles en- coded in the traditional building method. This system is transformed and manipu- lated by the folk builder according to generative rules similar to those of lan- guage acquisition and creation (where fi- nite means produce infinite variety). The mental language which defines the folk de- signer's rules of competence-the folk building tradition-is seen as a kind of highly abstracted architectural grammar, or schemata, which codifies habitualized responses or typical reaction to a situation. The mental language or schema structure used by folk builders should not be seen as mental pictures or symbols of houses or doorways, but ideas abstracted far beyond representation and symbolizing funda- mental ideas in culture. It is important to empbasize that this explanation is no more, but no less, than a model for understanding how habit and tradition are reinforced and manipulated in the human mind. Without a model such as this one for understanding traditional thought it would be difficult to interpret folk design method, because folk builders design in their minds.

Form Generation in Folk Design: Folk builders share a common strategy for generating design ideas which can be de- scribed as a continuous process of compo- sition and decomposition within a vocabu- lary of existing building forms. Folk de- signers operate in a narrow, culturally de- fined field of possibility which is struc- tured by tradition. This field consists largely of the existing building examples

A comparison of the design ideas available to the vernacular and modern designer.

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available to each builder and the design re- pertoire contained within each builder's particular tradition. (Of course, modern designers also work within a limited per- sonal and culturally defined field, but the quantitative difference is significant.)

Folk designers solve design problems by relying on past precedent, but it is inaccu- rate to say that they merely copy old forms. It is more accurate to say that they generate design ideas by disassembling or decom- posing existing forms and composing new forms out of the abstracted ideas of bits and pieces of existing forms (see diagram above). The folk designer accomplishes change by reordering the hierarchy of ideas (schemata) contained within the known grammar or tradition of existing structures. In the folk system, new forms are conservatively generated out of old forms and old ideas, while in modern de- sign practice new forms may be generated from both old and new forms and ideas. To use Levi Strauss' terms the "bricoleur" (handyman) or folk designer works within a severely limited field of pre-constrained ideas derived from existing buildings while the "scientist" or modern designer is free to go beyond the constraints of the context or building tradition and manipulate theoretically unlimited design explo- rations7 (see diagram below). The folk builders' dependence on the existing con- text and tradition for design ideas is what fundamentally distinguishes this mode of design from more modern or scientific ap- proaches.

The distinction between the folk design mind and the modern design mind extends to the very nature of the ideas they con- sider. To use Levi Strauss' distinction again, the folk designer operates with a fi- nite world of ideas and signs structured by the physical world and pre-constrained by the local building tradition. The modern designer, however, operates in an infinite world of ideas and abstract concepts which have an unlimited capacity to hold new forms and ideas. While both design minds rely on abstract thought to manipulate ideas, the modern designer's use of abstracted concepts to stand for unlimited associations is a qualitative difference of great importance.

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29

Advantages to the Folk Design Method

At first glance the benefits of the modern design method seem overwhelming, but the plodding folk turtle has some persis- tent advantages over the quick modern rabbit. One commonly recognized advan- tage of the folk method of design is the benefits of a narrower field of design ex- ploration (it may even be argued that what designers primarily do is to impose limits on the design field to make problems man- ageable). By choosing to operate within tradition, the folk designer's real problems are small and manageable, but not insignif- icant. Since the traditional buildings are summaries of problems already solved, the folk designer is free to focus design atten- tion on areas which need repair or change. This is the type of misfit problem solving strategy that theorists like Christopher Al- exander have in mind when they speak of the repair of the existing environment.8

The structure of folk design method al- lows for a significant degree of individual interpretation and variety. Common to most folk method is a strategy of focusing attention on critical areas of design while allowing a variety of individual interpreta- tions in subordinate areas. This design method is characterized by a primary (de- pendent) and a secondary (independent) design component in which the primary or gross architectural arrangement is rigor- ously structured while allowing the de- signer a range of individual design in- terpretations in the secondary systems. For example, the basic room proportional sys- tem and plan arrangement of English and Germanic housing in the new world (the key to the design replication strategy) was steadfastly maintained for hundreds of years in America while the same settlers were relatively free to experiment in vari- ous building materials (log, brick, heavy timber and even sod). The stylistic trans- formation of the Cape Cod house in north- ern New England is another example of an unchanging structural organizational sys- tem freely interpreted in a wide variety of architectural styles according to the latest fashions and stylistic trends. The strategy of ordered frameworks or grids for ac- commodating individual variety is often taken up by systems advocates but seldom with as solid a basis for success as long es- tablished folk design methods.

Folk designers are often perceived as un- imaginative copiers because much of their architecture appears to be simple repeti- tion. It is often assumed that the con- straints of traditional design emasculate the individuality or creativity of the folk designer. This is simply not born out in documentation which suggests that proud, individualistic, creative designers are folk

societies' rule-although the folk designer manifests individuality in different ways than contemporary designers. The folk de- signer simply signs his signature much smaller but by no means less forcefully. This signature is in the details, in the care, and in the craft of building (and while the modern observer might not see this signature you can be sure his contem- poraries saw it.).

Folk architecture which appears unified, homogeneous, even identical becomes, on closer inspection, rich, diversified and in- dividualistic. New England barns which seem grossly uniform from the car be- come, on closer inspection, so diverse that it is risky to generalize about their struc- tural system over even a small country area. Without denying the strong collec- tive uniformity of folk architecture, it is possible to construct a strong case for in- dividuality in the smaller scale based on care, refinement and craft. The folk de- signer offers a much needed interpretation of creativity within an ordering framework or established tradition.

Similarities Between Folk and Modern Design Methods

Although the differences might seem ex- treme, there are basic similarities between the folk design mind and the modern de- sign mind. The most important similarity between these methods is that both have their basis in tradition, although the mod- ern debt to its traditional sources has been seriously undervalued, especially in design education.

Until quite recently contemporary re- search into creativity and design was dom- inated by models emphasizing new or unique creation (often these models are used as handmaidens to the contemporary search for new form or uniqueness). This research has not demonstrated the degree to which architects actually rely on this type of creative reasoning in design, nor has it fundamentally addressed the role of replication and tradition in contemporary design practice. The study of folk architec- ture design with its necessary emphasis on the working of the human mind should lead to a more reasoned assessment of the modern design mind, especially its debt to tradition.

What I find most exciting about the study of folk design method is the relative closeness of this "primitive" method to the way architects actually think and work-- the way a modern designer must inter- nalize vast amounts of complex informa- tion into symbolic mental grammar; and the vastly under-emphasized role of tradi- tion, replication and examples in the ar- chitect's creative process. Although the development of this assertion is beyond the scope of this paper, it is the model from vernacular architecture which is most in- triguing to me at the present time.

Lessons From Folk Design Method

The folk design method is not a working model of form generation for modern times, nor is it an instant panacea for the problems of contemporary design. It does however offer a tough, thoroughly tested, approach to design which has significant differences to contemporary methods.

The folk design method carries out de- sign according to a non-literary method based on tradition. It is worth considering simply because it is a design model based on different assumptions about the mean- ing and purpose of architecture. Since the role of tradition is especially emphasized in folk method and seemingly de-emphasized by modern designers, it is worthy of seri- ous study in order to reevaluate the value of traditional thinking for design. It is, therefore, encouraging to report that ver- nacular architecture method has no prob- lem integrating tradition with design pro- cess. Basic to all vernacular design method is the dominant role of tradition-an entire epistemological structure geared to repli- cation and maintenance of tradition.

The tough message from folk architec- ture is that its design method is no fluke; it's not a flash-in-the-pan strategy. A case can, and should, be made for folk design method as one of the most pervasive and well-conceived design methods in the his- tory of civilization. The fact that it is not studied by architects as a serious method is indicative of essential differences in pur- pose and method in folk and modern strategies; but also because the folk design method is simply not understood as method. The study of folk design seems worthy of careful study.

References

'Thomas C Hubka, "The Connected Farm Buildings of Southwestern Maine," Pioneer America, Vol 9, No 2(Dec 1, 1977) pp 143-179. Also, "The Connected Farm Buildings of Northern New England," Historical New Hampshire, Vol 32, No 3 (Fall 1977) pp 87-115. 2Although many books make this basic assumption it is particularly evident in Amos Rapoport's widely readstudy House Form and Culture (Engleuwood Cliffs, NewJersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc 1969). 3Bernard Rudofsky, The Prodigious Builders (New York: Harcourt BraceJovanovich, 1977), for example, p 12. 4For Example, Wilbur Zelinsky, "The New En- gland Connecting Barn," The Geographical Re- view 48-4 (1958) pp 540-53. SFor example, Henry Glassie, "The Variation of Concepts Within Tradition: Barn Building in Ot- sego County, Newu York," Geoscience and Man, Volume V (June 10, 1974) pp 177-2325. 6Henry Glassie, Folk Housing in Middle Vir- ginia (Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 1975). 7Claude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966) p16. 8Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form (Cambridge, Mass..: Harvard University Press, 1968) p 50.

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