Southern Syrian Vernacular Architecture with Lessons for Sustainability

The Southern Syrian Vernacular Dwelling is an overlooked, soulful, basalt stone dwelling. This traditional dwelling has been continuously occupied and adapted over thousands of years in response to its inhabitants’ lifestyle and their evolving culture. This book explores this adaption phenomenon from the post-colonial era onward in a holistic view, drawing on Professor Derek John Clements-Croome’s “Flourish” concept. The methodological approach has been proven successful in combining Sense of Place and Subjective Well-Being to provide a comprehensive insight into the adaption of the Southern Syrian Vernacular dwelling. It combines subjective and objective thinking in architecture, laying the emphasis on the relationship between consciousness and human senses. This book aims to widen our perspective on how to study the vernacular settlement around the world to harness lessons for liveable sustainable architecture and capture the poetic sensorial experience of the place, to design a joyful architecture where people can live and flourish, as a first step to freeing humans’ souls towards a living, empathetic architecture. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of: Vernacular Architecture, Anthropology, Environmental psychology, Cultural heritage, Biophilic design, Post Occupancy Evaluation POE studies, Sense of place SOP, Health and Wellbeing, and Sustainable Architecture.