ABSTRACT
In hot dry or warm humid climates, more than half of the urban peak load of energy consumption is used to satisfy air-conditioning demands alone. The pressure placed on energy resources to satisfy the future requirements of the built environment will be huge, unless more effective measures can be introduced. Most of the political and economic efforts are currently focused on how to build according to passive design principles and using XXI Century building technologies, but eventually it is forgotten that vernacular architecture design strategies constitute a big knowledge background. This paper demonstrates via a vernacular architecture study case of Castilla-La Mancha, how this type achieves most of the requirements of the passive design principles. The validity of the constructive resources used in Castilla-La Mancha vernacular constructions shows that they can be as valid or better than those provided by other construction solutions employed today.
