Receive the daily Popular Science newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries and DIY tips delivered six days a week. By registering, you confirm that you are over 16 years of age, will receive newsletters and promotional content, agree to our Terms of Use, and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Adapting to the current climate crisis will require architectural innovation, but not every problem requires a cutting-edge solution. Amid deadly, record-breaking summer temperatures, some residents of southern Italy are avoiding the heat inside revitalized medieval buildings. Although it went out of fashion for generations, a type of home known as teal is gaining popularity once again for its ingenious temperature-reducing design.
The first trulli (plural of teal) were built in the middle of the 14th century. The buildings are traditionally single-room structures topped by a large conical roof. Assembled using limestone quarried from farmland, each teal It has thick walls that measure between five and 10 feet deep.
One of the secrets of the natural cooling of trulli lies in the stones. The hygrothermal properties of limestone make it act differently depending on humidity and temperatures. It will absorb large amounts of moisture during the colder winter months, but all that liquid slowly evaporates and cools the interior once summer arrives. Meanwhile, the tapered roof further channels excess heat upwards.
The ambient temperature inside one of the structures is typically 12.6 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than outside. In some cases, that number can even rise to more than 25 degrees cooler at home.
Centuries of slow deterioration and disappearance of craftsmen meant that, by the 1980s, most new construction work depended on cement, a material with its immense ecological stresses.
“He trulli “It represented a bygone era of suffering and hunger.” teal explained restaurateur Francesco Fragnelli in an interview with AFP.
Craftsmen like Fragnelli not only repair what exists trullihowever. Demand for new construction projects “continues to increase,” according to Gerardo Biancofiore, municipal representative of the Italian builders association.
“With the increase in heat waves, traditional solutions (such as trulli) are becoming a valuable reference, capable of inspiring climate adaptation strategies also for contemporary construction,” said Biancofiore.
Beyond the new trulliThe houses’ underlying properties, such as rubble-core walls, could soon appear in other bioclimatic architecture projects as well.
“Scholars of sustainable architecture consider the principles behind the construction of trulli as a source of inspiration for buildings more resistant to global warming,” Biancofiore added.
2025 PopSci Best of what’s new
Keep following us for the latest insights.
