As the main concern in sustainability is consideration to climatic conditions, climatically compatible design is the closest way of getting the maximum advantage of renewable sources of energy, while at the same time the design minimizes the undesirable effects of the construction in the environment and causes coordination with sustainability. From this point of view, the Bushehr traditional fabric, which is located in northern side of the Persian Gulf shore in south of Iran, is distinguished as a city with a unique vernacular architecture and climatically adapted urban design.Climatic design in Bushehr traditional city is seen in several characteristics including urban morphology and urban orientation, as well as architectural design and architectural elements of buildings such as Shenashir. The main reason of using all these solutions and strategies in vernacular architecture of Bushehr was to be adapted to climatic condition (a hot and humid climate) and therefore using the environmental potential to provide comfort for its occupants, which are the main purposes of sustainable development.As a result, this research attends to investigate these climatic solutions and their advantages as an idea to develop and use in contemporary architecture in order to reach sustainability. To this end, qualitative methodology based on a descriptive–interpretative approach is applied in this research for analyzing appropriate climatic solutions in vernacular architecture of Bushehr

Space and place are among the fundamental concepts in architecture about which many discussions have been held and the complexity and importance of these concepts were focused on. This research has introduced an approach to better cognition of the architectural concepts based on theory and method of semiology in linguistics. Hence, at first the research investigates the concepts of space and place and explains their characteristics in architecture. Then, it reviews the semiology theory and explores its concepts and ideas. After obtaining the principles of theory and also the method of semiology, they are redefined in an architectural system based on an adaptive method. Finally, the research offers a conceptual model which is called the semiology approach by considering the architectural system as a system of signs. The approach can be used to decode the content of meanings and forms and analyses of the architectural mechanism in order to obtain its meanings and concepts. In this way and based on this approach, the residential architecture of the traditional city of Bushehr – Iran was analyzed as a case of study and its concepts were extracted. The results of this research demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach in structure detection and identification of an architectural system. Besides, this approach has the capability to be used in processes of sustainable development and also be a basis for deconstruction of architectural texts. The research methods of this study are qualitative based on comparative and descriptive analyses

This paper develops an integrated design framework of adaptive building façades (ABFs) to respond to photobiological and thermal needs of occupants, biophilic factors, energy requirements and climatic features in Northern Canada, i.e. near and above 50°N. The paper discusses the importance of biophilic and photobiological factors and ABFs to improve occupants’ health and human–nature relations and deal with the extreme climate in Northern Canada where non-adapted buildings that could negatively affect occupants’ well-being. The paper shows that existing ABFs must be further developed for northern applications in terms of (i) the physical structure and configuration of components, (ii) the design of solar shading/louver panels to address photobiological and biophilic requirements, (iii) the development of lighting adaptation scenarios to respond to biophilic and photobiological needs, local photoperiods and energy issues and (iv) the overall biophilic quality for accessibility to natural patterns. The ABFs’ framework was developed in three phases including: (1) process environmental data, (2) produce adaptation scenarios and (3) operate adaptation scenarios. The research discussed major issues of all phases that must be further studied, especially the development of hourly/daily/seasonally lighting adaptation scenarios. The paper develops a holistic parametric methodology to integrate and optimize major design variables of ABF’s components.