African Vernacular Architecture Database (2015)

Vernacular architecture is architecture characterised by the use of local materials and knowledge, usually without the supervision of professional architects. Vernacular buildings are typically simple and practical, whether residential houses or built for other purposes.

This shift in building style also brought about a shift in usage.

At the most visible level, round, amorphous shapes gave way to rectilinear layouts.

The organization of family compounds also changed. Traditionally, one would see 2-4 rondavels (round, single-room structures), all linked by a low wall (lolwapa) into an inward-oriented cluster. That got replaced by a single, larger house, presumably with multiple rooms inside.

In terms of usage, you could see the difference best in the middle of the day. This is a desert country, and the modern materials and constructions are a thermal disaster. Thick walls with a lot of thermal mass got replaced by low-mass walls. Uninsulated tin roofs collect solar gains (and radiate heat, becoming uncomfortably cold at night). Thatch roofs also tend to have wide overhangs, providing shade at the side of houses.

As a result, people living in new houses tended to be outside, squeezed under the shade of whatever scraggly trees there were. Those with traditional houses tended to be inside, or sitting in the shade on the kind of built-up seat that runs around many rondavels.

I never priced things out, but the only way to understand this shift had to be as a function of cost. Thatch had to be imported, and I think doesn't last beyond a decade at most. And the traditional walls required a lot more seasonal maintenance.

What's interesting is that most houses being built in rural areas in SA (as e.g. opposed to Botswana) are not true vernacular but cross over buildings. In the process a lot of traditional architechture are being replaced; in this regard I think what would be cool is to find talented architects to "preserve" some of this in new commercial buildings.

Rural building are now much more Western (with huts having rooms are not possible, you sort of can have "graphs" though). The budget constraints also mean that houses may be built room by room over many years. One interesting "vernacular" developments I would say is pillars. Rural villages love them! It would be interesting to see how this evolves into a 21st century vernacular.

These projects are to address the poor condition of schools, where children are typically taught in overcrowded shacks.

https://www.archdaily.com/875103/silindokuhle-preschool-coll...

[0] https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/09/introducing-inclusive-imag...

EDIT: Now it does