As Arquiteturas do milho e do trigo: diálogos circunstanciais com a luz do lugar

Abstract

Vernacular architecture constitutes a form of construction born from a set of capabilities acquired from the interpretation of the place. The form is the constructive syntheses of the circumstantial values of its environment. The vernacular construction is the natural materialization of the human experience about the territory, an instance relation with the nature of is habitat. This architecture is a specific elaboration; different places create different responses, particular architectonic solutions incited by means of adaptation or instincts of survival and comfort. The present thesis focus on the formal and constructive mutability of vernacular elements disposed in opposite landscapes of the Portuguese territory, with particular sets of physical characteristics, with the aim of analyse the different shapes of shading, illumination and ventilation that the Portuguese vernacular architecture develops on the adaptation of the built environment on witch its inserted. The phenomenological study of the place presumes the understanding of the principal aspects over which are inquired the study cases. Among all the physical aspects, the light is the most perennial element from a place. The configuration of a territory can change throughout time, open spaces can be reconfigured, the construction materials can no longer be restricted to a site, but natural light cannot be exported or changed, it's a constant source of energy. Natural light is therefore, with its distinct patterns and rhythms, and essential piece on the construction of the place's atmosphere. According to this premise its conducted a comparative analysis between to architectonic types, related to the corn and oat production, whose program and function are similar, but due to their geographic conditions they present formal and constructive characteristics completely different. The Portuguese sequeiro and the barnyard are two architectonic types bounded to specific circumstances of the rural activity, present in the North and centre of the country, connected to landscapes with spatial conditions predetermined by this function. The confrontation of those two regions, the North of Atlantic influence and the centre of Mediterranean influence permits the construction of a critical and theoretic basis of the interpretation of natural space by the need of Man.