10-year experience from vernacular to contemporary sustainability

the Fassa Bortolo International Prize for Sustainable Architecture in 2013 celebrated its first ten years. The initiative, launched in 2003, conceived and promoted by the University of Ferrara's Department of Architecture and Fassa Bortolo company aims at supporting and promoting all those initiatives in Architecture field that take into proper consideration the environment, that focus on human needs, that satisfy our generations' necessities without limiting, polluting and mindlessly consuming future generations' resources. The paper aims at presenting some of the very different contributions that in the past years came from every part of the world highlighting an important fact: the solutions and the submitted projects reflect new goals and approaches that mirror the local realities. These local initiatives, permanently tied to the geographic, topographic, environmental, all linked to vernacular solutions can show new and more affordable approaches to manage energy in terms of natural light and overheating protection.