**6. Sustainability and vernacular architecture: redefining identity**

 In traditional societies and for centuries, people have lived in harmony with nature; they grew their food from surrounding region and developed their lifestyle in accordance with the available resources. They have construct buildings using the local building materials available in the surrounding environment using their hands and developing building techniques affiliated with the physical characteristics of these materials. Traditional societies realized that their survival required them to sustain balance with lifecycle around them. In other words, traditional societies were the real pioneers of sustainable development over time in the perspective of natural and built environment.

When defining architecture and the built environment, we have to think beyond places shaped by products and buildings; we need to consider how people modify the environment to accommodate to their needs, life, customs, and culture. McClure and Bartuska noted that "The Built Environment is everything humanly made, arranged or maintained to fulfill human purposes, needs, wants and values to mediate the overall environment with results that affects the environmental context" [32]. This can be related to how sustainability is integrated with architecture.

The architectural style, design, and construction materials of new buildings should reflect the cultural heritage of the locality or region and they should be environmentally and culturally sensitive and sustainable over the long term (**Figure 5**).

The architecture of the region, created at specific geographic locations at certain points in time by different individuals, reflects spirit of identity. There is an interactive relation between sustainability and identity. Sustainability, in its comprehensive essence, has integrated within physical and incorporeal heritage of any society. Social and environmental sustainability has incorporated with local identity where people formed physical production (buildings, artifacts, furniture…) and cultural values (identity, traditions, social values…) in response to the ambient environment. Architectural identity, and its interrelation with the context such as location, climate, environment, local material, encloses the meaning of sustainability: "… sustainability is important part of the identity in architecture; identity is the main core in the dimension of regionalism architecture" [16].

**Figure 5.**  *Inspiration from vernacular architecture within urban context (Source: Salman, Maha).* 

*Sustainability and Vernacular Architecture: Rethinking What Identity Is DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.82025* 

**Figure 6.**  *Inspiration from environmental solutions in vernacular architecture within modern urban context-Masdar City-Abu Dhabi-UAE (Source: Salman, Maha).* 

Sustainable architectural is built on the idea of regionalism; however, it does not ask us to return to the old ways of living as pure nostalgia; it inspires us for the responsible, long-term use of technology and design [4]. Interpretation of architectural styles through features such as: design concept, inward looking plan, thick brick or stone walls, small well-designed windows, door transom, high ceilings, and elevation treatments can provide valuable lessons in sustainability. How these lowtech features functioned during times when energy consumption was limited provides examples of principles applicable to today's efforts to conserve local identity as a response to environmental issues. The traditional response to climate, setting, and materials provides opportunities for presenting positive lessons in environmentally sound design.

Preserving the identity in the Arab World architecture necessitates a deep understanding of the local natural systems and thorough perception of cultural values of the society that have developed and proven their validity over time. Architecture needs to be erected to meet the desires and needs of its people; the built environment is shaped with unblemished consciousness of the multilayered relations between nature, culture, social values, economy, and available resources of the region and its distinctiveness.

Sustainable design philosophy honors the differences between places; it rejects the concept that buildings should look and being built the same in any region. The making of cultural identity in contemporary architecture reveals the mechanisms of constructing the "regionalism" and the "identity" through architecture in an international, global context. Architecture should respond to place in fundamental ways [4].

Advocates of sustainability acknowledge that traditional cultures and ideologies embody ideas and principles on which sustainable living should be based [33]. The goal of sustainable building design is to create optimum relationships between people and their environments. Planners, architects, designers, developers, and operators have an opportunity and a responsibility to protect the identity of a place, its people, and its spirit (**Figure 6**).

 It is not just the use of appropriate materials or local building techniques, or the reevaluation of traditional features need to be preserved; it is the identity of people has to be sustained in order to overcome the exploitation and the cultural neocolonialism which plays such a great role in contemporary Arab World architecture.

### **7. Conclusions**

This chapter intended to discuss identity in architecture through investigating several concepts such as culture, vernacular architecture, and sustainability as different facets of identity. Several definitions have been discussed for the major concepts of this chapter.

**Table 1** illustrates a comparison between some definitions as well as highlighted author's interpretation.

Through discussion and analysis, the chapter tried to find analogies between identity, as an indicator of a certain society, and sustainability, as a lifestyle developed by people in that society to live in harmony with the surrounding nature and available resources sustaining balance with lifecycle around them. Architecture, vernacular in particular, as a product of people is a vibrant manifestation of how identity and sustainability are related spontaneously in accordance with nature and culture.

 Vernacular architecture is a demonstration of identity and sustainability; it is the "mirror" of nations that reflects place, time, and culture. Architecture that was built by people to people; it has developed sustainably through time and modified itself through trial and error to fulfill society's needs in harmony with the ambient environment.

The search for establishing a new regional identity means being independence from the imported values and ideologies without losing cultural interrelation that serve the human civilization. Regaining an Arab identity is fundamental to the formation of a new Arab culture, not only in the field of architecture but throughout all aspects to feature a trace in the drastic changeable world.

#### **Identity**

 Identity is the fact of being who or what a person or thing is; the characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is [1].

 Identity establishes or indicates who or what (someone or something) is, who a person is, or the qualities of a person or group that make them different from others [2].

Human identity presupposes the identity of place. The "essence" of architecture is defined accordingly: The basic act of architecture is therefore to understand the "vocation" of the place [8].

 Place identity defines who people are and defends people from settings that threaten who they are or want to be [5].

The identity of a place is part of a one's self-identity derived from everyday experiences of places and the built environment [6].

Identity means being unique and distinguished from others, this can be applied to a thing, person, and group of people, society, country, or even nation.

#### **Vernacular architecture**

Vernacular architecture is unpretentious, simple, indigenous, traditional structures made of local materials, and following well-tried forms and types [10].

Vernacular architecture is an architecture style that develops from the particular climate and social conditions of a place [25].

In vernacular architecture, each tradition is intimately related to social and economic imperatives; it has developed to meet specific needs within each cultural milieu [26].

Vernacular architecture features offer dramatic metaphors for regional forms of shelter, as well as rational responses to the harsh climate [9].

Vernacular architecture is the built environment (city, architecture, and interior spaces) created based on the society needs. It is built in accordance with the natural environment (geography, topography, site, climate, local building materials, labor experience, and building techniques) fulfilling people's physical, economic, social, and cultural norms.

#### **Table 1.**

*Summary of identity and vernacular architecture definitions.* 

Conceptually, sustainability is not all about energy conservation, renewable resources, or building materials. Sustainability is a life style, a way of living, and society cultural identity. Human being everyday activities are the essence of sustainability, the way they live, act, work, produce, plant, and build. Sustainability is not a term to be understood; it is a life to be practiced.

Regaining identity requires deep investigation of vernacular architecture to contrive potential of sustainability in hardpan. Sustainability, as a style of living, is one of the routes in our search for identity in this global context, which is indeed a search for survival, not only for the Arab World but also for the entire world.

### **Conflict of interest**

The author declares no conflict of interest.

### **Declaration**

All photos were taken by Dr. Maha Salman.

*Urban and Architectural Heritage Conservation within Sustainability* 
