Thermal comfort is the main driver of buildings energy consumption; it has been classified by building occupants to be of greater importance compared with visual and acoustic comfort. To respond correctly and quickly to the increase in energy price and pollution, thermal regulations and comfort approaches have emerged. This paper compares the thermal performances and energy demand of a vernacular and a low-income modern dwelling using two major thermal comfort approaches (Givoni’s approach and adaptive thermal comfort recommended by The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers in ASHRAE standards 55-2010) and the energy professional’s method presented in the French Thermal Regulations RT2012. It shows the effectiveness of bioclimatic and passive strategies in reducing energy demand, increasing the thermal comfort level for the buildings, and therefore reducing greenhouse emissions. The results show that the vernacular house was comfortable during the warm day, which approved a 100% cooling energy efficiency (the thermal comfort has been achieved in a passive way), contrary to the contemporary dwelling, in which the use of air-conditioning modern systems was essential to meet the occupant needs in terms of thermal comfort. The difference between the houses’ energy performances was estimated, including a 39% reduction in energy demand.

This study investigates the thermal performance of the ventilated mask wall used in the low-income neo-vernacular dwellings designed by André Ravéreau to cope with the warm desert climate conditions of M’zab Valley, Ghardaia, in southern Algeria. This device is a ventilated façade provided with an opaque external massive cladding. It is designed to be particularly efficient in hot climates, functioning simultaneously as a brise-soleil and a ventilated façade, compared with conventional façade systems. Based on a typical experiment conducted during the summertime (12–14 August), a residential unit in Sidi Abbaz selected as a case study was modeled and calibrated using EnergyPlus (v8.4) software, and then a dynamic simulation was performed in order to assess the efficiency of the ventilated mask wall as a cooling strategy. By means of the validated thermal model, various alternatives for the façade materials were investigated, and the thermal behavior of the current ventilated mask wall was compared with a 45 cm thick limestone façade wall, and a 30 cm thick hollow clay brick wall under the same conditions. Countless benefits were achieved by the application of the mask wall system, including a stable and less fluctuant inner surface temperature, and a reduction in the incoming summer heat flux. The improvements performed, in particular the time lag of 12 h and the related decrement factor of 0.28 indicate the effectiveness of this wall system, which enabled radiant temperature drops of more than 10 °C, and an air temperature decrease of about 6 °C, during the summer sunniest hours. The results demonstrate that this solution is suitable for buildings design applications to meet the objective of low-energy demand in warm desert climates.