Folk housing revisited

As Fred Kniffen observed, vernacular buildings identify culture and record our relationships with physical and social environment. Influenced by Kniffen, twentieth‐century cultural geographers used spatially correlated log homebuilding attributes as diagnostics. The present study used a qualitative meta‐study approach to evaluate studies citing such correlations in the eastern temperate forests of North America. Forty‐two studies involving sixty‐three geographic entities and twenty‐two attribute types were evaluated. The meta‐study's findings were consistent with an Eastern Woodlands regional model described by Kniffen, Terry Jordan, and Wilbur Zelinsky. A majority of the spatially correlated attributes involved building materials, cited cultural and/or environmental influences to explain their findings, and cited correlations at state/province or county scales. Today, identification of building culture undoubtedly continues to offer potential guidance to sustainability efforts, and, although untapped, vernacular building continues to offer potential as a key diagnostic.