10 - Modern or traditional style

Traditional or modern style? Traditional or modern materials? 

 

Two themes that have greatly influenced the way in which we have built and still build our dwellings. And the choices we have made have not always yielded the most desirable results.
 

Let us explore a bit these tow themes. I invite the reader to also explore these two themes with friends and family.

TRADITIONAL OR MODERN STYLE?

 
We know all too well the origin of the forces that made us view everything we were familiar with, everything that was traditional, as inadequate, old, and no good. We do not need to review again that part of our history.
 
But we know that it was due to those forces that we stopped building our dwellings the way our elders and our ancestors used to build and started imitating the style and the materials that were shown to us in the cities of concrete.
 

I find it very interesting that today, all over the world, we can see a revival and a recognition of that traditional style in the construction of new hotels... 

  

 

... residential buildings ...

  

 

... beach facilities ...

 

... and other buildings replicating and imitating our so called traditional style.

 

This being the case then, why can't we build our homes, no matter how humble and small, in the way that was so familiar to us, the way that was valued for so long, and is now being valued again by so many people in our countries as well as overseas?
  

Like this example that I find so simple, comfortable and beautiful ...

 

 

... or this one, a bit less elaborate, but with a lot of good taste ...

 

 

... and based on a mix of details and readily available materials.

 

I think that the times have changed and that the door is open for us to make use of so much time tested traditional knowledge. And we can enrich this knowledge with a mix of ideas to create dwellings we can build ourselves with materials readily available in nature. Dwellings that can be so much more comfortable and healthy.
  

TRADITIONAL OR MODERN MATERIALS?

 

Traditional building materials are very well suited to build dwellings in the so called traditional style. The style people call ecological but I call human and nature friendly.

 

In future articles we will identify natural building materials, traditional building materials, how to obtain them, how to build well with them and how to improve their comfort and efficiency as residential buildings.