I always understood "vernacular" to be a noun, refering to a place's local language. But here I see it used as a adjective, not pertaining to language. Have you ever seen this usage?

Meanwhile the Atlanta Housing Authority ... has been ... demolishing its old projects and replacing them with attractive one- and two-family townhouses built in vernacular architecture.
- Wall Street Journal, Aug. 18, 2006, p. A14 col. 4

It's from a Latin adjective. The AHD lists quite a few adjectival meanings.

I've certainly never heard it used in terms of architecture. I've heard it used as an adjective in the sense of "vernacular language".

http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?gwp=13&s=vernacular

quote:

Adj: 4. Of or being an indigenous building style using local materials and traditional methods of construction and ornament, especially as distinguished from academic or historical architectural styles.

I'm with Sean on that, even if we are a generation apart.

Vernacular architecture garners 336K ghits.

It seems most commonly used with language and architecture, though the OED cites uses in endemic diseases; of slaves; meaning "private, personal;" the phraseology of a particular profession or trade; and from 1727, rare: "Vernacularness, properness, or peculiarness to one's own Country."