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Anglo-Saxon House: Extracting Wisdom from the True English Vernacular

Part 2 Dissertation 2021
Benjamin Warner
University of Kent | UK
Temperature records were shattered again this year (by up to 5°c in places) as evidence of human-made climate change continues to mount. The construction industry currently accounts for approximately 40% of worldwide CO2 emissions; the imperative to innovate towards climate safety has become yet more urgent.

If humans are to survive long into the future, architects need to look long into the past for inspiration. They need to set aside their prejudices, retire their pursuit for monumentality, and be inspired by the anonymous “non-pedigreed architects” of the world’s historical and distant civilisations which have been doing for millennia something that Western Architecture is so desperately struggling to achieve: to live and build sustainably.

Sustainability is a highly localised affair, and as such is studied here in a particular local and historical context. Along with pertinent analysis of three critical perspectives, focus is given to ancient English architecture, the primary subject being the typical Anglo-Saxon house (c. 500-800 AD) which is presented as England’s true architectural vernacular, and source of sustainable wisdom. An operative methodology is employed in order to propose a sustainable technological application (a roof) inspired by the Anglo-Saxon house for the typical English houses of today.

Benjamin Warner

Tutor(s)
Giridharan Renganathan
2021
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