energy in Vernacular architecture

Any analysis of the role played by energy in architecture
 is faced with serious limitations due to the lack of studies 
in the architectural bibliography, especially

studies of popular architecture.
An awareness of these limitations will allow us to
understand better why architects have paid little 
attention to the interaction of form
and energy, and to the bioclimatic approach in
 contemporary architecture in general.
The first limitation stems from the very essence of 
bioclimatic analysis; energy is immaterial, difficult 
to represent in images, changing in time and wrongfully left out
of the architectural hterature. 
This is why it is difficult to find a basic knowledge of
the functional aesthetic possibihties of bioclimatism in
the cultural experience of present-day architects.
The second limitation to this knowledge, even more 
important than the previous one, is the low value given 
to the more anonymous 'popular architecture' as opposed to
'representative architecture'. 
The latter is the kind of architecture built by established
power, which attempts to impress the observer and clashes 
with, dominates, and often destroys the natural environment. 
This style of architecture is crammed with theoretical aesthetic
concerns, which would rather create artificial environments than
be integrated in the natural milieu. 
To sum up, it is the architecture undertaken by
well-known authors, found in 'important' buildings, which 
have been commented and widely appreciated 
by architecture critics throughout history.
Nowadays, representative architecture can be said to 
describe the architecture found in large office buildings, 
which embody the legacy of such works from the
history of culture as the pyramids, classic shrines, 
medieval castles and large Gothic
cathedrals, baroque and Renaissance palaces, etc. 
These modern buildings, clad in glass as a symbol of their 
modernity, are incongruously dark and require artificial
lighting during the day, while the flimsy casing separating them from the outside