It is well known that the passive strategies applying in traditional buildings respond satisfactory to climatic requirements and succeed to provide maximum indoor comfort with minimum energy consumption. From this point of view, it is interesting to quantitatively assess the effectiveness of the vernacular strategies to improve the environmental performance of the building’s envelope under desert climate conditions. The research tries to address this issue and was undertaken in southern Algeria where a very hot and arid climate prevails. The effect of some selected passive cooling strategies on enhancing the building’s envelope climate performance was examined. These strategies are inspired from the local vernacular architecture, and they are expected to provide satisfactory indoor thermal comfort for users and to reduce the energy cooling demand from residential buildings. Applying field and computational investigations, two existing residential buildings were tested: a typical residential unit and a contemporary vernacular (neo-vernacular) building. In the latter, climate responsive strategies inspired from vernacular architecture were applied. A comparison based on site measurements was carried out on the two selected buildings which differ from their envelope design properties and components.

众所周知，应用于传统建筑的被动策略对气候要求的反应令人满意，并成功地以最低的能耗提供最大的室内舒适度。从这个角度来看，在沙漠气候条件下，量化评估乡土策略在改善建筑围护结构的环境性能方面的有效性是很有趣的。该研究试图解决这个问题，并在阿尔及利亚南部进行，那里气候非常炎热和干旱。研究了一些选定的被动冷却策略对提高建筑物围护结构气候性能的影响。这些策略的灵感来自当地的乡土建筑，它们有望为用户提供令人满意的室内热舒适度，并减少住宅建筑的能源冷却需求。应用实地和计算调查，测试了两座现有住宅建筑：一个典型的住宅单元和一座当代乡土（新乡土）建筑。在后者中，应用了受乡土建筑启发的气候响应策略。对两个选定的建筑物进行了基于现场测量的比较，这些建筑物的围护结构设计特性和组件不同。应用了受乡土建筑启发的气候响应策略。对两个选定的建筑物进行了基于现场测量的比较，这些建筑物的围护结构设计特性和组件不同。应用了受乡土建筑启发的气候响应策略。对两个选定的建筑物进行了基于现场测量的比较，这些建筑物的围护结构设计特性和组件不同。