The aim of this document is to explore the potential culture and tradition has in restoring and preserving local cultural identity through built environment. The need to create local cultural identity to built environments and to ensure that these are expressed in a progressive and dynamic way in order to expresses culture as a dynamic evolving organ, not a as static dogma ensuring versatility and significance to all generations. Most built environments do not consider the importance of culture and tradition hence such ignorance has resulted in the formation of spaces that lacks the identity of the society. The research will explore how culture, tradition and built environments may be integrated to create a meaningful environment in order to achieve environments that are an epitome and responds to the people’s needs. / Thesis (M.Arch.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.