Cultural anthropology as an approach for vernacular architecture case study: Gharb Soheil, Nubia, Egypt

Abstract

Architecture for humanity represents the finest of the new breed of architectural leadership; where the architect's mission exceeds the borders of finding the proper dimensions and placements within architectural space, to the stage of understanding a person and his behavior within this space. Cultural Anthropology is the median of the relation between architecture and human beings; as it studies the social, nonmaterial and material lives of contemporary and historical human societies, assigning certain cultural determinants for architect's work so that this context is embodied in architecture to get sustainable buildings through the perspective of culture and society, no matter time invested in comparison with mistakes can be prevented. Thus, the research aims to use an anthropological perspective to contemplate appropriate architecture and design for different cultural environments to cope with rapid cultural transformation and to introduce new approaches that can be applied to the design process. It aims at encouraging the attempt of returning to the vernacular architecture of different societies and its vocabularies, which is architecture by/for people, depending on their culture, needs, and localities. Moreover it aims to apply vernacular vocabularies in modern communities through an anthropological perspective to create affordable architecture that expresses the identity of the society it belongs to and serves the culture of people who will live there.