,
10 tweets,
5 min read
Read on Twitter
The Romans knew about geothermal power and in the renaissance architects utilized the same sources to build great villas with natural air conditioning. Here is the Villa Trento Carli in Italy, built in 1645, never warmer than 17 to 23 degrees c even in the hottest of summers. 
The villa is built on the lower end of a series of natural and Roman excavated tunnels and caves, perpetually at 12 degrees c all year round. The caves open up into the cellar of the villa (actually a whole cluster of villas and cellars in the region) and lead cool air inside.
Inside the villa the floors have decorative marble openings in the floors of each room where the cold air pushed out the warmer air. On the ground floor, the temperature can be kept at 17 degrees c. If more warmth is needed, individual marble openings can be covered with rugs.
The system could work equally well in the winter and raise room temperature to never go under 12 degrees c, but there would have to be an equally large underground channel downhill of the villa. Heating tech is easier to build than cooling tech however, so this hasn't been tried.
A modern version using a low tech system—not energy free but energy low—is described in this video. Here it is used for heating, but you could use it in cooling, as is done all over Europe.
Here is Palladio (1508-1580) writing about the use of chimneys and flues in heating and cooling houses and store rooms, citing Vitruvius (d. 15 B.C.).
They called it Covoli, but other names for it include Canadian Well, or Provencal Well. sgarq.com/en/canadian-or…
David Mayernik (who does great architectural art) created this "infographic to describe how the cooling system looks. Second image just added to show off his skills as an illustrator. Now that would be a fine city!
If you don't have a system of lime caverns dotted around the hills above your home another reasonable solution is to build an impluvium.
The principle is called adiabatic cooling.
