Vernacular architecture and contemporary production processes: Formation, experimentation and construction in a Brazilian rural settlement

This thesis takes as its analytical perspective the contemporary manifestations of vernacular architecture production and building cultures within the complex correlation of forces and interests that shape and determine the phenomena of capitalist production of popular housing. The analytic framework is delineated from a series of reflections of theoretical and conceptual order, in relation to the analysis of a popular housing building site within an agrarian reform rural settlement in Brazil. This assumes the form of a field school in loco on the building site and is projected as a stage for experiments and experiences, where the proposal is to combine pedagogy and production in the same space. The processes of knowledge formation and construction occur simultaneously and complementarily to practical achievements and development of technologies. This building site is thus transformed into a tool for the constitution of a dialectical space of social work, where the orientation of its productive experimenting is focused on the challenge of designing a house from the local generation of social technologies, through the use of natural materials and reuse of discarded resources. A theoretical work, presented in the initial of the thesis, provides the framework for this fieldwork, which feeds back our reflection on processes of production and development of new vernacular architectures, integrated into their territories.