Paper short abstract:

This work challenges the hegemonic use of terms like vernacular architecture, which homogenize diverse knowledge. It seeks to operationalize the concept, highlighting its potential to interpret the mobility of local matter and explore pathways to future-oriented ancestral design.

Paper long abstract:

The historical narrative of local architectures, commonly defined as popular or vernacular, is questioned in this work due to its foundation in a binary opposition to the hegemonic Western canon of "Architecture". This approach simplifies the complexity of these practices, ignoring their potential for relational future possibilities. This text proposes thinking through the concept of vernacular architecture as a means to access the understanding of biocultural heritage, the movements of techniques, knowledge, affects, and designs that shape environments, modify soils, generate biodiversity, and build landscape infrastructures, all through ancestral practices that challenge extractivist and colonialist logics.

The concept of vernacular architecture is revisited as a category that homogenizes the diversity of architectural, spatial, and construction knowledge. It is argued that terms such as "traditional architecture," "popular," or "without architects" limit our ability to imagine possible futures. This debate is situated within a broader discussion of the “ancestral future,” led by Amerindian thinkers such as Ailton Krenak and Davi Kopenawa. These authors question paradigms of "development" and "progress" and advocate for integrating ancestral knowledge, which fosters alliances with the non-human world and opens pathways toward non-extractivist and regenerative design. Despite the difficulties of translating between worlds and scales, the aim is to explore intermediate spaces and methodologies for dialoguing between transdisciplinary knowledge, forging deep and affective alliances between peoples.

In this context, the question arises: What categories of thought, associated with local architecture, can help us establish relationships of climate mobility, ecological care, and landscape stewardship toward an “ancestral future”?