In context, extrinsic data means information originating from the heart of matter and presumably irrelevant data. This word helps to emphasize the importance of the sentence. No matter much outside information is given, the most effective method to study architecture is to first hand observe and analyze the physical presence of it.

If someone were to study the architecture of the houses in southern Louisiana that Ben Brown talks about in "Unpredictable, High Risk, High Cost: Planning for the Worst is the Worst", they would find no substance most likely, only content, which could actually lead them in some interesting directions with their research.

In "Unpredictable, High Risk, High Cost: Planning for the Worst is the Worst", Ben Brown argues that natural disasters are going to start occurring more frequently, which means we'll need to start designing our buildings to protect ourselves, so how will a change in design reveal what our cultural values were to the people of the future? Perhaps, it will reveal that our own safety was most valued by us. Maybe we'll start to see more buildings being destroyed by natural disasters like in the case of Louisiana. In which case, the people of the future may not be as tied to history as we are now.

I would think that this makes culture extremely hard to study. It must be really hard to find hard, aboluste cultural evidence to use for research. All you can really do is observe people and read things that they've written, which would make your evidence really subjective to whoever made it.

In "Unpredictable, High Rise, High Cost...", Ben Brown argues that not only can we not simply live in nature, but we can't live beside it either. It attacks us, so we need to find ways to get around it. Could the study of vernacular architecture lead to any improvements in how we design buildings to withstand natural disasters?

Vernacular researchers are kind of half archeologists too.

Once I visited the house that "The House of Seven Gables" by Nathaniel Hawthorne was based on, so maybe that novel could be used as valid research for the actual house. And, yes, the house did have seven gables.

If they were studying the houses knocked over due to natural disasters, most of their evidence would be unknown. They would have to find documents and research the sights where the buildings used to be. It would be interesting to study the architecture that arose after the natural disasters, and compare the architecture before and after. It's probably too soon to study that though.

If a vernacular researcher only had two of those three, would their findings be as stable?

Extrinsic: not part of the essential nature of someone or something; coming or operating from outside.

This would definitely be the case for studying early 21st century southern Louisiana architecture.

You can't do this if you're studying older architecture because the people who lived there are all dead...

Exactly the case for the architecture of certain areas after a natural disaster has struck.

How much of history is made up?

If somebody were comparing the architecture before and after a natural disaster, I think it would be very clear where the old ideas are washed away and the new ideas arose. I mean if a flood wipes away a bunch of old houses, people are probably going to seize that opportunity to build new living complexes or even industrial areas.

Exegesis: critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially of scripture.

If you stuck to the usual documents, then vernacular architecture wouldn't exist. It would just be archeology.

So most of the vernacular architecture research isn't going to be ethnographic because they mostly study old buildings where nobody lives anymore.

This is the case for all of history, but I think that architecture is probably the most effective way to find out more about a certain historical culture. People poor themselves into their living areas. I mean, not only are certain types of architecture representative of a culture as a whole, but each individual structure will have a little bit of a distinct person in it, which not only gives you insight into culture, but also into individual human nature.

What about traces of natural disasters? The study of vernacular architecture has to take in a lot of things when doing research.

You can only recover their stories through the eyes of the people who knew them. An indirect reference is that great for research though.

So material culture is a slightly more objective manner of research than an individuals recordings.

Nothing shows class better than a person's living space, so vernacular architecture can sometimes show, more accurately than written history, class differences and how people in certain classes actually lived.

How will the vernacular researchers of the future show how the people of southern Louisiana lived by there aesthetic preferences? Will there be enough buildings left to research this?

Will the vernacular researchers of the future be able to see how the natural disaster brought the people of different classes together? I think that the only thing that would be able to show that would be written history.

I think it will be interesting to see how vernacular architecture is used in the future to study the sites of natural disasters. Will they use it to explore how people came together? Or will they use it to come up with a better plan to be prepared for natural disasters? Personally, I think that they won't be using architecture to study it. I think that in the internet age, vernacular archicture is only good for researching cultures and people that we don't have access to anymore, or who weren't around for the invention of the internet.

I wonder what kind of techniques a vernacular researcher would use to study a building. I imagine they'd be able to tell what period a building was from or what the decoration is based off of. Would they use chemicals to study the actual materials used to make the house?

I would say that, yes.

Even though all of these documents could be classified as archeological findings or show the subjective view of one of the buildings inhabitants, vernacular researchers are able to relate them all back to the structure itself.

This answers my question about ordinary buildings. I was right, art architecture and sculptures are not included.

Axiom: a statement or proposition that is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true.

In Dr. Fernandez's class we had a discussion that ties in very closely with this. We discussed how different cultures view personal space. We found that in America, private space is valued more than public space, but in a place like Africa, public space is valued because they share a lot of things like their places of residence and the very ground below their feet.

What do they mean by "ordinary buildings"? I'm assuming they're referring to buildings with an actual use as opposed to more abstract art architecture.

In "Unpredictable, High Risk, High Cost: Planning for the Worst is the Worst", Ben Brown argues that the way we prepare for natural disasters is extremely inefficient. He argues that instead of being a political matter wherein pointless grants are being thrown around all over the place, it should be dealt with by non-profit organizations, local businesses, and scientists. According to Brown, the constant interference by the government into the matter is slowly nudging out scientific practice and discovery. Scientists have found that the probability of natural disasters is slowly on the rise, and we need to find a more efficient way of dealing with them in order to survive the coming years. Even the mass displacement of people in the effected area is more efficient than what we're doing right now.

Brown, Ben. "Unpredictable, High Risk, High Cost: Planning for the Worst is the Worst." Place Makers, 23 Aug. 2016,http://www.placemakers.com/2016/08/23/planning-for-the-worst-is-the-worst/. Accessed 5 Sep. 2016.