Lessons from the living southern Syrian vernacular towards sustainable architecture

The Southern Syrian Vernacular is an overlooked basalt stone dwelling that emerged from places and traditions, being continuously adapted over thousands of years in response to its inhabitants' ever-evolving culture. This paper highlights the effectiveness of applying Clements-Croome Lessons from the living southern Syrian vernacular towards sustainable architectures conceptual theory ‘Flourish’ which implements the basis for post-occupancy evaluation to move beyond comfort, reaching out toward acquiring the ideal state of well-being. The findings showed that Flourish was effective and productive in combining a sense of place and subjective well-being to learn lessons for sustainable architecture, allowing the vernacular knowledge to be understood and communicated to other vernacular environments worldwide. The most significant findings illustrated that these adaptations respond to the intent of their inhabitants and their modern life requirements in a way that they express their inhabitants’ evolved consciousness; thus, this vernacular is sustainable. This conceptual framework and the developed methodology are recommended for investigating and retrofitting green energy solutions in southern Syria to reincarnate this profoundly old and loved dwelling into a new creature that fulfils the modern life requirement. The outcome could also be used globally to design place-related design solutions that promote health and wellbeing for its inhabitants and as a first step towards future living architecture.