Building typology refers to the classification of buildings into types according to similarities in form or function. The building types that most often come to mind, and that typically receive the most scholarly attention, are the ‘high’, classical or formal building types: the temple, cathedral, castle, school; and later, with the coming of the industrial revolution, the railway station, factory, airport, and the like. But some of the most appealing and fascinating building types are vernacular: buildings whose form reflects a very specific function, a function which in turn is the result of a very specific set of local conditions relating to culture, climate, agriculture and the like.

One of my favourite vernacular building types is the English oast or oast house, a building consisting of two parts: a rectilinear one- or two-storey volume (the ‘stowage’) for the storage of freshly harvested hops, and an attached tower (usually round with a steep conical roof) for the drying of the green hops over a fire at the base of the tower. Obviously, oasts were only found in areas where the climate was suitable for large-scale hops production; they are most closely associated with the counties of South East England, Kent in particular.

Today we might think these buildings look somehow ‘contemporary’ or ‘cool’, but that is to see them with a tainted eye. Their builders were innocent of such modern concepts, though no doubt they and the people who lived around these structures appreciated their effortless utilitarian beauty.