In the past the scarcity of resources and the hostility of the environment made it necessary, in historical centres, natural reserves in the Sahara oases systems, to manage resources in the less wasteful way and to design and create the most appropriate technologies. In various climates and environments, extraordinary tenacious cultures have been able to use the material available locally and renewable resources.  They have used solar energy and the laws of nature: the principles of thermal insulation for protection from heat and cold, hydrodynamics for water captation and distribution, biology principles to combine and reuse elements for humus and cultivable soil creation. They have managed to control the force of the winds, to use the law of gravity and to exploit the slightest factors of humidity to trigger interactive autocatalytic processes to amplify positive phenomena.

These rules are the bases on which the Mediterranean civilizations developed, but, without the commitment of man, the environment degradation process has been triggered and these wonderful techniques have been abandoned and lost.

Today, while entire planet systems risk ecological collapse, Traditional Knowledge shows how to interact with the environment enhancing its resource potential without exhausting it. It is the bearer of quality and techniques, widespread on a territorial scale, that have originated from the use of the materials and objects of everyday life. It consists of fragile elements that are subject to the attack of  today’s transformations, but it also constitutes a still widely adopted system of strong and brilliant devices for energy production and resource recycling,  microclimate control and for the management of the earth’s soil.

The acquisition and dissemination of this knowledge does not mean a return to the past, but their innovative reintroducing. This a productive field of research for the development of new technologies based on the same ancient principles, experimenting the possibility of making progress in the acquisition of the most ancient knowledge hoarded by humanity and combining it with high-tech.