The Cypriot vernacular farmstead: the relationship with its inhabitants and the environment, its environmental behaviour and adaptation in time

Reviewing the existing literature, there is an important research gap related to the examination of the Cypriot farmstead as a distinct building typology of vernacular architecture, despite the fact that the traditional dwelling has been investigated to a certain degree. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation is to study and understand the Cypriot vernacular farmstead, its relationship with its inhabitants and the environment, its environmental behaviour and its adaptation over time. For its investigations, this work draws analytical tools and ideas from the theories of Rapoport (1969) and Oliver (1976, 2006), as well as from bioclimatic design and sustainable architecture theories. For its implementation, it employed a multiple case study research design with three Cypriot vernacular farmsteads as cases, located within one rural settlement and still in use by their original owners and descendants. Extensive field studies included qualitative and quantitative research methods, i.e. participant and non-participant observation, interviews, focus groups, in-situ documentations, environmental monitoring and post-occupancy evaluation surveys.

Research findings showed that these farmsteads differed from rural houses because they were situated in communities' fringes within larger land plots, and developed as conglomerates of varying building types, juxtaposed linearly around multiple open-air working areas; an assemblage that has been continuously mutated and morphed over time, depending on the complex interplay of several determining and modifying factors. More specifically, a farmstead's overall placement and orientation, form and spatial configuration, materiality and construction, functionality, use and operation are influenced by socio-cultural, economic, technological and environmental factors, along with inhabitants' ever-changing living needs, diverse activities and functional-occupational demands. Each farmstead exhibits a centrality, multiplicability and/or additivity of forms and a multi-purpose functionality of spaces, which enable it to resiliently and versatilely adapt to satisfy inhabitants' needs, through morphological reformations, spatial re-organizations and integration of new functions and uses, regardless of changes in habitation status and operational mode. In addition, its embedded bioclimatism and intuitively-applied sustainability enables occupants to utilize passive cooling and heating strategies, take advantage of vegetation, exploit climatic phenomena and mitigate conditions, to create relatively comfortable indoor and outdoor living and working spaces. Gradually, all farmsteads evolved from subsistence farms, into agricultural, livestock farming, light-industrial, goods-producing and service-rendering businesses. Presently and based on future prospects, some farmsteads still function, albeit with reduced agricultural activities. Others have been transformed into vacationing villas for visiting descendants or rented-out as agro-tourism accommodations. Under different circumstances, several farmsteads have either acquired altogether different purposes and uses, or sold to new owners. In worst cases, they have been abandoned. Consequently, these recorded phenomena show a constantly transformative relationship between the farmstead and its owners. Relatively, at a theoretical level, this study revealed and purposed the notion of the "farmstead and inhabitant relationship", which arises mainly from the process of satisfying inhabitants' needs in the building, i.e. through architecture; an operation which also shapes the form and function of the farmhouse, its supportive buildings and outdoor areas.

There is an urgency and a necessity to record and study these vernacular farmsteads, because as they are still in use today, they are undergoing tremendous arbitrary and uncontrolled modifications that change their original authentic architectural character and historical value, as well as their bioclimatic-sustainable characteristics and environmental behaviour. It is also imperative to preserve and protect them, as valuable existing building stock of the countryside, since they contribute to a great degree to the primary and secondary sectors of the Cypriot economy. Based on its findings, this research offers valuable lessons and good practices for the restoration and reuse of vernacular farmsteads, as well as provides viable solutions to bioclimatic design and sustainability, environmental building behaviour and energy performance in relation to inhabitant thermal comfort, and as applied to existing traditional and newly-constructed buildings. Lastly, due to its interdisciplinary approach, multiple case studies and extensive field studies with fully-integrated qualitative and quantitative research methods, which present a significant theoretical, practical and methodological value, this study makes important recommendations for future research.