International experts descend on Adelaide to examine how ‘vernacular’ architectural insight can solve some of our biggest global challenges

Internationally renowned architectural scholars will descend upon Adelaide, South Australia, later this year for a conference exploring the varied nature of modern vernacular studies and its insight for 21st century problems.

The University of South Australia’s Vernacular Knowledge Research Group (VKRG) and the University of Adelaide’s Centre for Asian and Middle Eastern Architecture (CAMEA) will host the Mapping Vernacular Terrains conference in early December.

Vernacular architecture focuses on construction from locally available resources, using orally transferred knowledge and generationally refined traditions.

Guest speakers at the two-day event include the highly respected Professor of Anthropology of Architecture Marcel Vellinga who will visit from Oxford Brookes University, UK, as well as Professor Abidin Kusno from York University, Canada.

Professor Paul Memmott from the University of Queensland, a significant national figure in the study of First Nations’ vernacular environments, will receive an Honorary Doctorate from Oxford Brookes University at the December conference. In a special ceremony delivered by Professor Vellinga, the event will also recognise Professor Memmotts’ extraordinary life’s work.

Mapping Vernacular Terrains invites participants to explore the varied, interconnected, and widespread nature of vernacular studies in 2024.

Conference co-convenor Dr Julie Nichols, Senior Lecturer in Architecture at UniSA, says the event is an opportunity to expand disciplinary understandings of the vernacular beyond built environments. Participants will explore how ideas about how being rooted in a place and its native traditions can help create unique and lasting communities.

“The conference will present multi-disciplinary approaches to studying local art, architecture and cultural practices. It will look at how these can help solve the big problems of our contemporary world such as affordable housing, sustainable living, and preserving cultural traditions,” Dr Nichols says.

“We hope to interrogate these possibilities drawing upon built environment and humanities scholars, GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) sector and heritage professionals, and their innovative documentation, research and curatorial methods.”

Four main panels of discussion will unfold over the two days including anthropological studies of vernacular societies, understanding of vernacular buildings, structures, sites and Country in the context of First Nations peoples, the different media and forms of representing vernacular ideas in the GLAM sector and digital mapping infrastructure.

Conference co-convenor Professor Samer Akkach of the University of Adelaide says the ‘vernacular’ has long been an effective tool of cultural relativism, which is gradually losing its relevance in today globalised world.

“The conference offers an opportunity to think of the ‘vernacular’ in new universal terms,” he says.

For more information visit the websiteor contact vkrgconference2024@gmail.com

What: Mapping Vernacular Terrains

When: 5 December to 6 December

Where: Pridham Hall at the University of South Australia, 215 Hindley Street, Adelaide.

More information and registrations.

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Media contact: Melissa Keogh, Communications Officer, UniSA, M: +61 403 659 154 E: Melissa.Keogh@unisa.edu.au

Researcher contact: Dr Julie Nichols, Senior Lecturer in Architecture, UniSA E: Julie.Nichols@unisa.edu.au