The vernacular architecture of the Hausa people (mainly in Nigeria & Niger), called tubali, have an interesting detail always at the front of homes and houses: the dakali, a sort of public bench where visitors can gather and the men of the home can sit keep an eye on the street.
You find these built in benches in many instances of traditional or classical architecture all over the world, from Europe to Asia and Africa, the Americas. Here is an interesting Patrician example from Italy:
Back to the Hausa however, these days the dakali are rapidly becoming extinct as Hausa prefer to live in more western styled homes: instead of the semi-public informal gathering in front of the home, you get teh private living room and TV treatment.
You can think of the dakali (usually located on the east of the home) as a front porch, but more urban, and more inviting. Like the homes, they were built with mud bricks and plastered in mud or a lime plaster mix.
Hausa architecture is 100% sustainable, 100% non-toxic, the materials used are produced in a 100% sustainable manner and they function perfectly well 100% off grid. The technology and skills needed to build them is easily transferrable to the next generation...
...and their homes and buildings are automatically integrated into the fabric of the towns and cities they are built in. All of these aspects are things that modern and especially Western societies are completely unable to achieve, despite the vast resources we throw at it.

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More from @wrathofgnon

9 Mar
Whenever I talk about how much space our cities dedicate to parking I get upset replies and DMs. People usually have no idea how much space parking uses. Here's downtown Montpelier state capital of Vermont, with a bit over average surface parking for a North American city: 65%!
What went through their heads when they decided that using 65% of downtown for daytime car storage was a sensible use of resources? Imagine how much land all the other car infrastructure occupies, and how much of the budget is spent on maintaining it! The lives wasted commuting!
Montpelier could just give the parking lots away to the commuters (about 14,000) and ask them to build charming little townhouses, walkable streets, shops and courtyards and pocket parks, and finance it by the budget savings on infrastructure spending alone. With room to spare!
Read 4 tweets
8 Mar
The famous Harmonica Yokocho in Tokyo's Kichijo neighborhood is an interesting study in bottom-up urbanism. On an area of 30,829 ft² or 2,864 m² there are exactly 100 stores, shops, restaurants, and bars, providing the livelihoods of between one and three hundred people. How? -->
In 1944 the area around Kichijoji station was cleared of buildings to protect it from bombing damage. The open ground was quickly turned into an open air black market where local children would ride the trains into undamaged rural areas and buy food from farmers to sell.
The black markets existed around every train station for years after the war ended. In 1958 the local vendors heard rumors of a development on their traditional patch of land. A plan was formed: large quantities of corrugated iron, mortar, tinder blocks and lumber was purchased.
Read 8 tweets
5 Mar
Windows are so much more than just the large sheets of glass that the modernists and architects today try to sell you. They can in themselves provide a combination of light, view, privacy, security, space, shade, and passive ventilation, heating, cooling, wind catchment, etc. -->
Maybe the most multifunctional of windows are the Mashrabiya, common in islamic, mediterranean and middle eastern architecture. Primarily they act as wind catchers, leading winds that would otherwise just go past the flat wall, into the building: natural ventilation and cooling.
The Mashrabiya even made it to the New World via the Moorish architecture of Iberia, here is the The Archbishop's Palace of Lima, Peru, built in 1924 by the Polish-Peruvian architect Ricardo de Jaxa Malachowski (1887-1972).
Read 8 tweets
4 Mar
In Japan, the Sawara (Chamaecyparis pisifera) is the poor cousin of its much more famous (and valuable) relative Hinoki. It even gets it name as a comparison to Hinoki, it is soft and light (sawaraka). Slow growing, it takes 200 to 300 years to reach its full height of 35-50m.
It is tricky to tell the difference, but sawara (right, with a tiny X pattern) has smaller cones and pointy leaves compared to the hinoki (left, with a tiny Y pattern). But if you find it as lumber, Hinoki smells like heaven and Sawara smells a little sour like lemons.
After the peace of 1600, the need for timber to build Japan's towns and castles grew so rapidly that it threatened to destroy the ecological balance of the entire country. The feudal Owari clan in particular had extensive forestry holdings and saw the urgent need to protect them.
Read 8 tweets
1 Mar
This beguinage in Courtrai occupies two acres and could comfortably house a hundred people. Add an acre for food fish, aquaculture and greenhouses, and you could feed them as well. People in the 13th century built this with hand tools as a charitable endeavor. It'd be easy today.
The U.S. have 17 or so active infantry divisions. It would be peanuts for each one of them to get the money and personnel needed to build a three acre self-sustainable "veteran's village" and just let homeless veterans of each division live in them for free in perpetuity.
What veteran, either bachelor or with a small family, would not want to live here for free? Welcome to the 3rd Infantry Division, Georgia, Veteran Village. Hand made with only natural materials. Jobs included, unless you already have one.
Read 6 tweets
28 Feb
“Living in a traditional urban environment is much more enjoyable, not more expensive to build than the usual contemporary developments. In order to achieve the highest social qualities it should become the general standard for new developments.” —Count Léopold Lippens, 1941-2021 ImageImageImage
Count Léopold Lippens was the mayor of Knokke-Heist, Belgium, until his death on February 19th, 1979-2021.
“We found an ideological commitment to Modernism, at any cost.” — DPZ's Jeff Speck, AIA, the project manager.

“Contrary to prevailing opinion, however, the Lord Mayor of Knokke-Heist preferred classical architecture for the project.” ImageImage
Read 5 tweets

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