Indigenous Architecture

Introduction

The creation of an indigenous architecture in southern Africa has always been part of a larger process whereby both the individual dwelling unit and the larger homestead or village derive their existence from the found and natural materials of the physical environment. They use their immediate surrounds as a ready quarry for the timber, the stones, the clay and the grass required for their construction.

Theirs therefore is a highly functional kind of architecture which uses materials according to their natural properties. As a result the form of dwellings, the size of settlements and even the resolution of certain structural details, such as the roof apex, have all been subjected to different environmental forces leading to certain regions developing strong architectural identities in their own right.

In spite of these outward differences however, all rural architecture is linked by the fact that this habitat is part of a delicate environmental balance which brings together human settlement, economic activity, physical environment and culture into one larger interacting whole. Thus if one of vernacular architecture’s attractions lies in its seeming ability to merge with immediate surrounds, that is because it draws upon its social and physical environs for its very being.