Vertical dwellings as a cultural legacy. A typo-morphological reading of Asir tower houses

This Doctoral thesis in urban morphology presents a study on the traditional architecture along the Red Sea basin, and more specifically on the one located in the Asir region in Southwest Arabia. The central theme revolves around the study of its traditional vertical dwellings, also know as “tower houses”. The villages in this region were once lively historical settlements, comprising a series of original and morphological elements, different from the ones available in the rest of the Kingdom. For decades, however, they have been abandoned and “forgotten”, mainly because of the rapid urbanization of the city. These villages faced enormous threat of losing their vitality due to unorganized and unstructured conservation plans. Today, part of a broader scientific vision, this research fits within a large governmental development strategy, on both regional level with the "Asir Development Strategy" and national level with the “Vision 2030”. Through its morphological analysis, this thesis contributes in the understanding of the forming process of the vertical urban form. The study also tries, following a processual way of reading the layers of a settlement, to analyze the typology of the dwellings. Therefore, the research question revolves around the understanding of an original interpretation and study of these vertical architectural organisms. Focusing on the reading of the different scales of the traditional settlements, the analysis of the precious historical inheritance will be possible. Also, through a detailed graphical analysis, the research uses typo-morphological approach to demonstrate and extract the different urban and morphological characteristics of a precious historical inheritance. Finally, it will show how this method could be used universally, from historical to contemporary fabrics, and could be considered for future developments and studies on vertical dwellings. This will contribute to the continuity and preservation of the South-Western of Saudi Arabian home environment.