An investigation of the adaptation of the southern Syrian vernacular dwelling

Abstract

Southern Syrian vernacular is an overlooked basalt stone traditional dwelling. It has been continuously occupied and adapted over thousands of years in response to its inhabitants’ lifestyle and their evolving culture. From the post-colonial era onward, a dramatic socio-cultural evolution has exerted a major impact on how this vernacular has been lived in, modified and adapted.

This study has investigated the user experience and the physical adaptations of the dwelling, at the same time examining the interactive relations between them. This approach should allow a better understanding so that lessons may be learnt from the adaptations of this vernacular, which fit in the sustainability of the vernacular architecture discourse.

A Post Occupancy Evaluation survey was used for a phenomenological-mixed methods design study to explore the residents' experience and their satisfaction of both physical and non-physical attributes of their vernacular dwellings. This focused on the adaptation, comfort and control, sense of the place, and the overall users’ satisfaction. The methodology has proven the hypothesis of the study. The inhabitants overall are satisfied with the adaptations to their dwellings as they were carried out for general comfort, improving the inhabitants’ quality of life and making the houses more usable for contemporary living. The integration of sense of place perception in the notion of sustainability and engaging peoples’ cognitive and affective evaluations of their dwelling experience was productive in terms of linking the subjective and objective inhabitants’ thinking to better understand the cultural influences on their subjective well-being.

Nevertheless, the results revealed negative aspects of those adaptations on the social culture cohesion, aesthetics, ecological and environmental performance in particular thermal comfort quality of the old dwellings. Furthermore, the study underpins the important role of education and passing on of vernacular knowledge on a local and global level.

Date of Award	Mar 2024
Original language	English
Supervisor	Neil Hewitt (Supervisor) & Philip Griffiths (Supervisor)