Passive Strategies of Vernacular Architecture for Energy Efficiency

Due to the need of sustainable development of the building sector, it is important to increase the energy efficiency in buildings and reduce the energy consumption for heating and cooling. In a changing world, full of innovative solutions and technologies, passive strategies of vernacular architecture are more used to achieve life quality and eliminate the negative impact on the environment and human health.

The vernacular architecture is based on the local construction materials and influenced by the traditions, culture and climate of the place. The “architecture without architect”, used mainly in housing, evolves over time and reflects the level of technology and historical context of the building. The core of this type of buildings was to use architecture to collect free energy from natural environment.

Demonstrated over time, the inherent and timeless knowledge of vernacular architecture offers the basic level of comfortable living without the active strategies that include technologies. Passive architecture strategies are defined by minimizing or avoiding the energy consumption, using architecture and the natural environment to produce heating, cooling, ventilation and light. The elements of the natural environment are the sources of the energy: the sun, the earth, the air – the wind, the water. By adding active technologies, the quality of living must increase, but without influencing the main resources gained through passive strategies.

The present paper will provide the information needed to understand the importance of the vernacular architecture’s passive strategies, as well as describe a few examples of those strategies in different parts of the world, examples that demonstrate the efficiency and the impact of these systems. The authors state that the use of those strategies in the first stage of architecture design helps to achieve easier the energy efficiency required nowadays and represents the fundamental base for passive houses and nearly zero energy buildings.