Vernacular Architecture Forum

The Vernacular Architecture Forum (VAF) is a scholarly organization founded in 1980 to support the study and preservation of all aspects of vernacular architecture and landscapes.[1] The organization has brought together scholars and practitioners from a wide variety of disciplines--geography, folklore, architecture, landscape architecture, historic preservation and others. The Vernacular Architecture Forum holds an annual meeting, conducts tours, and publishes the quarterly Vernacular Architecture Newsletter and the annual journal Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum. In 2007, VAF had more than 800 members.

Participants of a VAF organized building tour approach the Harrington Meeting House

The annual journal of VAF was initiated in 1982 as a series of books titled Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture that contained selected papers from the VAF annual meetings. In 2007, the publication was retitled Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum reflecting its current formatting as a scholarly journal publishing a wide range of vernacular research.

The VAF expanded publication of special interest topics in the field of vernacular architecture and landscapes beginning with Invitation to Vernacular Architecture: A Guide to the Study of Ordinary Buildings and Landscapes.[2]