Just Folks Designing: Vernacular Designers and the Generation of Form Tom Hubka

Thomas Hubka Bachelor of Architecture from Carnegie-Mellon University 1969 Master of Architecture from the University of Oregon in 1972 Taught at the University of Oregon from 1972-1983 University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee from 1987 to 2011

Bibliograpy and Charles Zerner. A phenomenological and experiential approach to design education: The Alligator Learning Experience. Eugene, OR: University of Oregon, Center for Environmental Research, 1971. The connected farm buildings of northern New England." Historical New Hampshire. vol. XXXII no. 3 (Fall 1977) pp. 86-115. "Maine's connected farm buildings." Maine Historical Society Quarterly. vol. 18 no. 3 (Winter 1978) pp. 139-170 [and] vol. 18 no. 4 (Spring 1979) pp. 217-245. "Just Folks Designing: Vernacular Designers and the Generation of Form." Journal of Architectural Education 32, No. 3 (1979): 27-29. Big House, back house, barn: the connected farm buildings of New England. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1984. "In the Vernacular: Classifying American Folk and Popular Architecture." Society of Architectural Historians, The Forum: Bulletin of the Committee on Preservation 7, No. 2 (December, 1985): 1-2. And Frances Downing, "Diagramming: A Visual Language." PVA II. Camille Wells, ed. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press for the Vernacular Architecture Forum, 1986. Pp. 44-52. "The New England Farmhouse Ell: Face and Symbol of Nineteenth-Century Farm Improvement." PVA II. Camille Wells, ed. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1986. Pp. 161-166. "Farm Family Mutuality: The Mid-Nineteenth- Century Maine Farm Neighborhood. Boston, MA: Boston University Press, 1988. Pp. 13-23. "H.H. Richardson's Glessner House: A Garden in the Machine." Winterthur Portfolio. Winter 1989. "American Vernacular Architecture." Advances in Environment, Behavior, and Design. Vol. 3. New York, NY: Plenum Press, 1991. Pp. 153-184. and Jeffery Ochsner. "H.H. Richardson: The Design of the William Watts Sherman House." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. vol. LI, no.2, June 1992. Elements of traditional built environments. Berkeley: Center for Environmental Design Research, University of California, Berkeley, 1994. "The Gate of Heaven: The Influence of the Zohar upon the Art and Architecture of the Gwozdziec Synagogues." Mythin Judaism. Jerusalem, 1996. "Jewish Art and Architecture in Eastern European Context." Polin: A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies. vol. 10, 1997. and Judith T. Kenny. "The Worker's Cottage in Milwaukee's Polish Community: Housing and the Process of Americanization, 1870-1920." PVA VIII. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2000. Pp. 33-52. Resplendent Synagogue: Architecture and worship in an eighteenth-century Polish community. Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 2003. Big House, back house, barn: the connected farm buildings of New England. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2004. and Judith T. Kenny. "Examining the American Dream: Housing Standards and the Emergence of a National Housing Culture, 1900-1930." PVA 13:1 (2006): 49-69.

Misconceptions about Folk Design Method Mystical causation Historical elitism Primitive societies Unselfconscious designers The owner and the designer

What’s wrong with these interpretations Many vernacular structures follow specific traditional forms, used and varied to solve specific problems. They ignore the skill needed to put all the pieces together to serve everyday needs through architectural means within a tradition. There is the assumption that the lack of written documentation from the original designers implies a lack of this skill, which is simply not the case.

The generative process

Construction as design The act of construction is an active process of problem solving Carpenters of pre-building code eras did not so much build houses as solve houses. The adaptation of standing structures is even less guided by standard practice.

Purpose and Method in Folk Design Tradition. The maintenance of building design and construction ideas and methods. passed down by word of mouth Observation Replication and apprenticeship Tradition includes a mental understanding of the basic rules within the folk tradition, as well as habitualized and invented responses to different problems one might solve through architecture Form generation. The process by which vernacular designers do their work, often by mentally decomposing buildings with which they are familiar, and recomposing them to fit changing situations, using elements from the vernacular repertoire.

Similarities between Folk and Modern Design Methods Both have their basis in tradition. Both must be able to internally visualize the information in their architectural repertoires, and produce building that will serve their occupants efficiently. Each manifests individuality. The folk signature is in the details, in the care, and in the craft of the building (and while the modern observer might not see this signature you can be sure his contemporaries saw it.