Angeliki Sivitanidou

Angeliki Sivitanidou is a PhD student in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Kent, conducting research on vernacular architecture, bioclimatic design and sustainability. She holds Bachelor degrees (BArts and BArch) in Architecture, and a Master (March II) in Architecture and Environmental Design from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, USA.

She has taught as a lecturer in architecture at the Neapolis University Pafos and Frederick University in Cyprus. During her professional career, she worked as a chartered architect (AIA, RIBA) and a sustainability consultant in the USA, UK and Cyprus. From 2010 – 2012, Ms. Sivitanidou was a member of the “Working Group” that prepared and presented the candidacy application of Pafos for the title of “European Capital of Culture 2017”. Until 2014, she was the team leader of the “Cultural Barometer Research Project”, used for the development and assessment of Pafos2017 cultural events, a co-ordinator of the Pafos2017 Infrastructure and Urban Development Group, and a member of the Municipality Consultancy Committee for the implementation of Pafos urban masterplan. From 2015- 2017, apart from conducting her PhD research, she was an academic advisor and a co-ordinator on a number of ECoC projects and architectural student workshops in association with Pafos2017 organization. As such, her research activity expanded to include culture-led urban development and cultural policy, community-based approaches on urban regeneration and heritage preservation.

PhD Title

The Cypriot vernacular farmhouse: the relation with its inhabitants and the environment, its environmental behaviour, and its adaption in time.

My research investigates the relation between the Cypriot vernacular farmhouse, its inhabitants and the environment, in its past state (as built) and present altered state (after ensuing changes). My aim is to examine the factors that not only demonstrate but also influence this relation, focusing on the what, why and how. Since the relation of dwelling -inhabitant- environment may play an important role on thermal comfort, as well as provide evidence of bioclimatism and sustainability, my research also analyzes the environmental behaviour of the Cypriot vernacular farmhouse. As my research places the farmhouse in its socio-economic, cultural and environmental context, I have adopted an interpretive approach, using mixed methods of inquiry and longitudinal case studies of farmhouses and their inhabitants.

The most important information needed to answer research questions, comes from the residents, as participants, and the use of their farmhouses. Hence, for the qualitative section of my research, I have constructed inhabitant narratives, informed by the inhabitants’ experiences and actions, choices and uses, views and opinions, obtained via semi-structured interviews, informal occasional conversations and personal diaries, observed and recorded in the field (participant-ethnographic observation). During my field studies, I have conducted in-situ documentation and created an artefactual inventory of the case-study farmhouses, with architectural drawings, patterns of use, circulation diagrams, a calendar of inhabitant’s daily and seasonal activities, spatial analyses, and a record of changes and key stages of evolution. For my historical-interpretive research, I have reviewed written texts, visual media and oral folk stories, and examined the theories, concepts, characteristics and typologies of Cypriot rural vernacular architecture. For the quantitative section of my research, I have placed devices that logged climatic data in each of the farmhouses for specific time periods, which allowed me to re-enact and assess their environmental performances on a yearly basis.

The significance of my work lies on the research methodology employed and its ensued findings, which highlight the intangible aspects of Cypriot vernacular architecture (i.e. values, qualities, meanings and understandings, socio-cultural, socio-economic and environmental influencing factors), deciphered and interpreted from the inhabitants’ life stories and construed from their experiences, choices and actions, perspectives and ways of life. My research can produce new knowledge regarding the restoration of vernacular farmhouses with emphasis on the maintenance and enhancement of their bioclimatic characteristics and sustainable modes of operation. It can also contribute to the ongoing sustainable development of the existing Cypriot rural environment, “encouraging the sustainable use of resources and strengthening synergies between environmental protection and development” (Lisbon Strategy: Renewed National Reform Programme of the Republic of Cyprus, 2008).

First Supervisor: Prof.  Marialena Nikolopoulou
Second Team Member: Dr. Henrik Schoenefeldt