Reminded of this feature of Roman architecture, and 1700s European milk parlour or cheese house architecture that I vaguely recall and am too tired to currently re-look into: The Roman villas would have an open air room inside the walls of the house, shaded by overhanging roofs, and there would also be pools of water. The combination of circulation, shade and water evaporation would keep it one of the coolest rooms in the building.
(Vague recollections, please link a good article if handy!)
The milk parlours on the other hand would have a porous tile floor, with either brick, ceramics or stone, and in addition to having a through-draft and shade, they'd splash small amounts of water on the tile floor, and it would drop the ambient temperature several degrees as needed. Both of these were of course buildings much much different than what people live in today, but just idly thinking about how very very effective something so relatively simple was in areas with reasonable humidity.
@sinituulia from vague memory the traditional houses in Morocco and Iran were pretty cool to in this sort of design
@Dangerous_beans I'm less familiar with the region, but yeah! Also those cooling tower structures, where the winds hits it and physics does physics, so the hot air goes up and is then carried away. Or something like it.
I think traditional Japanese houses also have a high space in one bit of the house to allow the same thing to happen and keep people comfortable inside, just with a different type of shape and airflow?
@sinituulia @Dangerous_beans wind tower.
We need to bring back more of this vernacular architecture that works with the conditions around us. Rather than buildings just plonked down wherever.
@Dangerous_beans @sinituulia even here in the wet north we should be able to heat a home with a tea light, and it should need no active cooling...
We have the technology to do this. It's just not evenly distributed.
@quixoticgeek @sinituulia yep. My opinion is that in most of Australia a well designed house should need basically no heating, and only minor cooling, but that's not how we build the.