Abstract

In some cases, the traditional dwellings in the Mediterranean basin were the result of an intuitive process of background experimentation, developing bioclimatic skills, learnt from previous architectonic models. Taming the climate in a house can be achieved by means of its orientation and usage flexibility, the shading control, the sequence from the outside to the courtyard the ventilation and the natural refrigeration, using direct methods of heat prevention and indirect ones of heat dissipation. The courtyard house can develop these passive systems and is well represented in different Mediterranean domestic architecture traditions and in most Muslim regions, influenced by existing local customs, construction materials and environmental factors. In this sense, when a domestic building achieves these features, it is possible to label this architecture as environmental or bioclimatic.