Manual of Synthetic Vernacular Architecture Paolo Cascone How to respond to climatic changes reconciling nature with tekné? What is the social role of technology? How architects would reconsider their practices supporting community-oriented projects? The theoretical assumption for this investigation is based on the observation of cause-effect relations, between different urban and architectural configurations and their performances: social, environmental, structural etc. in both pre-colonial and informal cultures around Africa. The diachronic approach intends to generate, after many years of post-colonial studies, an operative agenda of possible strategies, which is in accordance with different conditions starting from the anthropological and the climatic ones. Such an agenda responds to a global cultural need for an ecological shift in the contemporary design and manufacturing processes, which should bridge high and low-tech cultures. Therefore, the book is conceived also as a sort of manual that is articulated around emergent principles inspired by traditional and informal African practices and