Plea2004 - The 21 th Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture. Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 19 - 22 September 2004 Page 1 of 6 Energy-Culture Across Altitude Ada Gansach 1 and Isaac A. Meir 2 1 Faculty of Architecture, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel 2 DAUP-Dept. of Man in the Desert, Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boqer Campus, Israel ABSTRACT: This paper argues that environmental aspects of vernacular architecture are culturally situated, and tests this proposition in the relationship between ecology, climatic conditions and architectural culture. The site of our study is the Himalaya of Nepal, where sharp change in altitude and ecology over short distances constrain and fragment human settlement. Migrants have evolved to form delimited ethnic groups occupying delineated areas, and developed local cultures and building traditions. We study and compare plans, sections, use of materials and people's interpretations of their architecture in several case studies. We examine how these change in relation to shifts in socio-cultural contexts in order to develop an insight into the formation of architectural variety. Our study demonstrates how digressions, differences and contradictions between house construction and environmental performance articulate the socio-cultural process of their formation. Conference Topic: 8 Traditional solutions in sustainable perspective Keywords: comfort, culture, energy, environment, Nepal, vernacular INTRODUCTION The paper demonstrates how local traditions related to energy in the built environment are temporal, reflecting a cultural process, which negotiates environmental conditions, and social and economic practices. Our study of contradictions and differences in building design shows that the embodiment of local knowledge of environment, climate and construction is a part of the historical process of change. We study a series of dwellings along and across the Himalaya in Nepal. Altitude here is a major factor in defining the ecology, as it rises from 100 to more than 8,000 meters above sea level over a relatively short distance and cuts through changing environments from humid to arid, from cultivated land to dense forest or bare desert. The fractured geography of high mountains sliced by deep river valleys has fragmented settlement and sheltered a process of localizing cultures, whereby immigrants formed delimited ethnic groups with place-specific economic practices, social and religious traditions (of both Hindu and Buddhist cultures), and developed different building traditions. At the same time, centripetal forces, propelled by the growing integration of the communities into the state since it was formed in the middle of the 18 th century, accelerated by the recent incorporation of Nepal into the global processes, have acted to link, though indirectly, the disparate communities, providing common grounds for our comparative study. The contradictory process of evolving differentiation and growth of common grounds, which has evolved in these circumstances, has articulated localities even in the most remote valleys. This process gives us the opportunity to trace the relationship between climate, environment, construction and organisation of space, and highlight the ways in which these are embodied in cultural practices. The first part of the paper looks at variations in the design of buildings within one ethnic group, the Nyinba in the high mountains of Humla. We examine environmental aspects of changes in the design of houses and discuss the context of their formation. The second part explores differentiation and change in architecture across the same ecological zone of the high Himalaya. We show how time and space, not only place, play a pivotal role in articulating the environmental aspects in the design of the vernacular. The third part of the paper compares building traditions along the cross section of the mountains. We look at architectural characteristics identified with particular ethnic groups, discuss their differences and evaluate these against the yardstick of environmental constraints and climatic comfort. Figure 1: Marsyangdi Valley - view from the middle hills to the high Himalaya. [A.Gansach, 1992]