Principles of Vernacular Design (and their application today)

by Kristian Bjrnard

Spectacular Vernacular
When graphic designers hear the word vernacular, we often think
of quaint hand-painted signs or old-fashioned candy wrappers.
But vernacular design is more than a collection of quotable styles
and false nostalgiait is a systematic method for creation that can
guide us toward more sustainable practices. Systems thinking is a
leading development in contemporary design and those systems requiring the least resources will best serve design on its path toward
sustainability. Vernacular design offers a valuable model as its aim
is accomplishing the most with the least.

Here, resources refers to anything

that can be spent: materials, time, &
money.

Stewart Brands How Buildings Learn is an in-depth examination

of the concepts of vernacular building. First printed in 1994, How
Buildings Learn provides a careful dissection of historic, cultural
architecture in America. Brand has had a lifelong impact on progressive thinking and the sustainability movement through the
Whole Earth Catalog (which he helped found in 1968), the first
Hackers Conference (1984), and most recently the Long-Now foundation (1996). He has at times been a soldier, hippie, observer, critic,
organizer, philosopher, and nerd of the highest degree. Because of
his varied interests, Brand approaches the vernacular with a scholarly rather than aesthetic view.
In Brands view, the vernacular process (which he also refers to
as adaptive building) is a systematic framework for evolving concepts. A culture steadily culminates these frameworks over time.
Traditions then arise allowing vernacular designers to reuse forms
and methods for common tasks. Contemporary designers typically look for a new or wholely unique solution to a given problem,
which is counter-productive to creating traditions. The concepts
of constraint, durability, and thrift provide the foundation for the
vernaculars evolutionary model. The same principles applied to
modern-day design practice offer new and concrete ways for design
to move forward.

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the principleS
Constraint
Indigenous builders use local climate, culture and materials to
guide their processes instead of years of formal schooling. The constraint of locality may limit formal elements, materials, and size
to vernacular builders, but making choices inside the presented
constraints allows for innovation to take place outside of initial expectations. Before the industrial revolution, around 200 materials
were used in the building trades worldwide. Most of those materials were the same nearly everywhere: wood, straw, brick, stone and
earth. Even with such a limited array of materials, widely different
uses and forms evolved in different locations. Specifying boundaries
does not have to limit options.
As a practicing designer, accepting constraints can make choices
easier. When you dont have 10,000 options, you can act quickly
and confidently. The web offers limited languages for web developmentPHP, MySQL, Javascript, Flash, CSS, htmlyet each year the
boundaries of what can be accomplished with the same technology
continue to expand. Specific CMS frameworkslike wordpress,
indexhibit or drupalend up being capable of powering vastly different types and designs of websites from the same basic code and
modules. These ideas are just as applicable to print design. In fact,
we already accept many constraints in our contemporary design
practice: paper sizes (how many letter-size jobs have you done recently?) and ink quantities and colors (CMYK) being two examples.
Constraints play a large part in sustainability. However, sustainability itself should be the most important constraint on the design
decisions we make. We can simply limit ourselves to only the materials that meet our definitions of sustainable. But instead of simply
making the sacrifice to use less ink or only using fully recycled
paper, we should be inspired to develop new systems of printing
and designing in which waste is no longer even an issue. William
Mcdonough and Michael Braungart offer a method of book printing in Cradle to Cradle that allows both the pages and the ink of
a book to be 100% re-made into another book. A google search
shows plenty of other possible choices (from solventless printing to
waste-derived fiber sources for paper) we could be making, too.

Another book about evolutionary

design, The Design of Everyday Things,
talks about constraints in the design
process as a way to help a project
succeed: The surest way to make
something easy to use, with few errors,
is to make it impossible to do
otherwiseto constrain the choices.

Constraints over sacrifices will be

useful for sustainable thinking moving
forwardwe don't want people to feel
like they are making sacrifices.

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One advantage we have today over our vernacular brethren is that

our information gathering is no longer tied to locality.
Thrift
Indigenous buildingswhether Viking longhouses, Amish barns,
or American bungalowsaim to get the most building for the least
material, money, and time. Practicality is the focus. A building
starts with something small and necessary and is only added to as
money, time, and need allow.
We have lost sight of this in contemporary design. We often seek
the cheapest solutions monetarily, but we dont always seek the
all-around least wasteful solutions. This is partially because the
economy of scale in traditional offset printing actually encourages
wasteits cheaper to print more than you need than risk running
out of a piece (of course, we often fail to properly estimate the
quantity we need). Emerging print-on-demand services like Lulu
and Blurb allow you to make short runs of books or magazines at
an increasingly affordable cost.

Modernism was actually about some of

these principles as well:
The new architecture is economic;
that is to say, it employs its elemental
means as effectively and thriftily as
possible and squanders neither these
means nor the material.
from van Doesburgs Towards a Plastic
Architecture, 1924

We can also be thrifty with ideas and problem-solving, not just materials. Knowing when to spend resources on new, untested ideas,
and when to use something old, reliable, and cheap is part of the
sustainable designers job.
Durability
The long lifespan of buildings is part of what allows them to grow,
adapt, and evolve. With that comes consideration of material and
maintenance. A Cape Cod house would never have specialized additions put on if the main core of the building was constantly needing repair because of perishable parts.
Most of the materials used in vernacular building practices are by
their very nature durable: stone and large timbers. Ephemeral materials (such as straw, thatch, or wooden shingles) are used in ways
and in places that allow them to show their wear and provide for
easy repair and replacement. Some mainly aesthetic choices now
made in current homes were once made for issues of durability and
longevitycheap brick is kept weather resistant by stuccoing and
hazard from fire is reduced by installing metal roofing.

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Durability in graphic design is as much about the longevity of our

systems as the materials in our objects. Design processes should be
long lasting and reusable. Chosen materials should last as long as
the intended lifespan of an item. Barns and rowhouses should be
made of durable goods, while a candy bar wrapper should not. Why
use permanent plastics and foils in the manufacture of an item intended for immediate disposal?
Think about the quantity of disposable objects we consume everyday: cheap paperback books, coffee cups, pounds upon pounds
of junk mail (not to mention most low cost clothing, appliances,
and electronics). Many of these things pass through the hands of a
designer before they make it to the hands of the user. Our job for
the future will be to question the materials from which the objects
are madein terms of meeting the durability requirements for the
object itselfand whether the piece can be dematerialized further,
even questioning its very existence.
a compariSonthe principleS at work
The Cape Cod house (whale house) of New England (Brands vernacular
principles) compared to the Walker re-branding, Walker Expanded (vernacular principles at work in a contemporary setting).
The Cape Cod house is characterized by a low, broad frame and
a steep, pitched roof with end gables, and a large central chimney
that all fireplaces in the house share. Also referred to as a whale
house, the Cape Cods form is tied to location and tradtionits
shape, materials, etc., were influenced by the whalers in New England, the building ideals they brought with them from England,
and the stormy weather and landscape of coastal New England
itself. Local materials and rudimentary technology were used in
the construction (the constraint of what was durable and readily
available). Cape Cods almost always started life as simple, largeenough boxes with sloped roofs to keep out wind, rain, and snow
(constraint of form). They were clad in easily replaceable clapboard
and shingles (again, attention paid to the durability of materials
in use). These initial structures were quick and cheap to build and
maintain (thrifty in money and time). Over time inhabitants added
on to their houses. As this happened, predictable modules for expansion began to recur. Future expansion of homes then happened

Charts and pictures showing these

examples can be found in on pages 711.

The photo of this Cape Cod style outbuilding was taken in rural Maine. It
shows all the elements described here
in near perfection.

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in predictable ways based on the success of common cultural practices. The buildings evolved over time based on the needs of the
occupants, available resources, and constraints of local materials
and cultural acceptance. (examples on pgs. 79)
The newest version of the Walker Art Museum identity, Walker Expanded, is a comparable example from contemporary design. Walker Expanded consists of patterns and word strings that are assembled at the designers discretion. The systematic, adaptive nature
of the identity is very similar to the vernacular model presented
by the Cape Cod house. There are constraints to the size, typeface,
selected words, and the color palette. However, if design choices fit
into the template described by these stipulations, anything goes.
Every time a piece is needed a new configuration or pattern can be
tested. Created patterns that are deemed successful are kept and
used again in subsequent designslike the standard whale house
additions that achieved cultural acceptance. The standard, repetitive nature of the Walkers design elements allow even a thin strip
of pattern to be recognizedthis can then be quickly and easily
applied to any possible product (see the Walker Expanded tape on
pg. 11). Most importantly, a designer can change a color or add a new
pattern or keyword to the mix at any time. This allows for future
flexibility. The brand is no longer tied to style or time; it can evolve
with cultural tastes and the needs of the Walker. (examples on
pgs. 10 & 11)
concluSion
Stewart Brand defines vernacular as the indigenous building of a
place. Vernacular more broadly means common designs by common people. What makes cultural common-ness so special is its
ability to evolve steadily over time. Common features survive the
passage of time when they are generally understood as good. Over
years, the vernacular incorporates more and more good features
while eradicating bad ones.
While we (as professional designers) cannot always behave as conservatively as vernacular designers, that doesnt mean we cannot
adopt their common ideals of constraint, durability, and thrift.
The beauty of design is that we can always pile new ideas on top of
old ones, and we do not have to reinvent the wheel each time we

Walker Expanded in use on the outside

of the Walker Art Museum.

Open source software provides an

initial framework or structure. When
users needs are not being met, the
users themselves write the updates,
patches, and modules that modify the
original code enabling new features
and functions. The community then
sounds off as to whether the solution
is succesful by how many others
adopt the upgrade/fix. This perfectly
exemplifies Brands philosophies.

From American Signs:

Traditions provide chronological and
cultural continuity tradition and
the vernacular go hand in handmost
vernacular objects are traditional.
Because such objects are ordinary
and common, their designers address
the needs and expectations of the
community rather than their own.
This leads to another, more simple
definition of vernacular design: Common
Design by Common People.

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tackle a problem. Ideas imported from elsewhere, if better at solving problems than our current ideas, are easily incorporated (this
is how present-day open-source communities function). Our role
must be to take the cautious, evolving methodology of vernacular
design and apply it alongside our contemporary technologist tendencies and conceptual processes.

Once a satisfactory product has been

achieved, further change may be
counterproductive, especially if the
product is successful. You have to know
when to stop.
from The Design of Everyday Things

Abridged Bibliography / Further Reading

Notes on the Synthesis of form, by Christopher Alexander
How Buildings Learn: What Happens After Theyre Built, by Stewart Brand
(specifically Chapter 9: Vernacular: How Buildings Learn From Each Other)

Whole Earth Discipline, by Stewart Brand

Systemantics: How Systems Really Work & How They Fail, by John Gall
(this book is also titled The Systems Bible: The Beginners Guide to Systems Large & Small depending on the edition)

Design & Faux Science (from Rant - Emigre #64), by Jessica Helfland & William Drenttel
American Signs: Form & Meaning on Route 66, by Lisa Mahar
Cradle to Cradle, by McDonough & Braungart
The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald A. Norman
The Manifesto of January 3, 2000, by Bruce Sterling
The Last Viridian Note, by Bruce Sterling
Shaping Things, by Bruce Sterling
Towards a Plastic Architecture, by Theo van Doesburg
Learning from Las Vegas, by Venturi, Scott Brown, & Izenour

text:

Calluna

designed by Jos Buivenga in 2009

notes/captions:
Anivers designed by Jos Buivenga in 2008

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cape cod houSeS: brand'S Vernacular at work

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cape cod houSeS: brand'S Vernacular at work

this process enables an Evolution from this:

to this:

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cape cod houSeS: brand'S Vernacular at work

left: A small, traditional Cape Cod

house that has yet to have any modular
additions put on.
below: The original, traditional Cape Cod
form can still be seen in the center of
this home that appears to have had an
addition added on either enda barn/
garage on the left and additional living
space on the right.

Old meets new: Old fashioned wooden

shingles are still in use to clad the sides
of this Maine home, while new steel
tops the roof. The shingles allow for
quick, easy repair and promptly show
when they require maintenance. The
steel roof is durability at its finestit
should last 50+ years without as much
as a second thought.

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walker expanded

Walker Expanded uses a simple, strict set of design rules to

create countless variations of the brand for everything from tape,
shopping bags, wall graphics, and whatever else the museum
might need (all on pg. 11). This chart shows the steps required for
generating strips of pattern according to these constraints.

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walker expanded in action

Walker Expanded in a variety of applications: (clockwise from top left)

Wall graphics in parking garage, museum admission tags, Walker shopping
bags, and Walker shop tape being applied.

Learn more about Walker Expanded here:

http://design.walkerart.org/detail.wac?id=2090&title=Featured%20Project

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