ABSTRACT
In response to challenging harsh climatic conditions, man has always been searching for habitable dwellings that offer thermal and visual comfort, security, and peace with the available natural resources such as sunlight, wind, and earth. Climate-responsive architecture has existed for many centuries in various regions with a hot-dry climate as a solution to constraints imposed by local climatic conditions. Building practice incorporates diverse passive design strategies to protect inhabitants from the surrounding hostile environment and provides maximum indoor comfort with minimum energy consumption. These strategies are based upon site selection, planning and layout of settlements, building components design, envelope design, incorporated passive elements, and lifestyle adapted. Although there are now technical means that would allow building design to ignore the climate, there are still good reasons to adopt passive techniques, not only for economy reasons but also to promote environmental sustainability at both local and global levels. This entry aims to give an overview and a comprehensive understanding of the vernacular architectural practices to withstand the harsh climatic conditions of hot-arid lands. It recognizes lessons from the past of having to live sustainably in a passive manner and thereafter pays full respect to a complexity of settlements, their urban dynamics, need for environmental adaptation to hot and arid climate, as well as ingenious solutions on all levels at the urban scale.
