*2.3. Approaches*

The following comparisons and approaches were carried out in order to achieve the aforementioned goals.

Equivalent energy—Shape factor. All the dwellings, original building materials, original locations and original morphology: The resulting values for equivalent energy were compared with the corresponding shape factors in order to check if there is any relation between them. The dwellings were situated in their original locations, and their original building materials were assigned. This way, the features that do not influence on the shape factor, but do influence on the equivalent energy, affect the results and the difference between these two values can be observed. Besides, the factors that influence these conclusions were analyzed.

Equivalent energy—Morphology. All the dwellings, same building materials, same locations, without openings: In order to establish a relation between the results of equivalent energy and the morphology of the dwellings, the models were reduced to their volumes. This means that their openings were removed, the same material was assigned to all of them and they were situated in the same ten locations (where the pueblos of New Mexico were built, that is to say, the locations the most sedentary dwelling was built). This way, all the dwellings contain the same information as the shape factor takes into account; that is to say, the surface of their envelope and the volume that is contained under it. The only characteristic which could not be eliminated was the orientation of the dwellings, not present in the shape factor and impossible to be removed from the DesignBuilder calculations. The building materials that were used in this approach are the ones that correspond to the template entitled "Timber frame-superinsulated", which appears on the database of DesignBuilder v6.1.2.005 and whose details are featured in Appendix A (Table A3).

Equivalent energy—Location. All the dwellings, both original and same locations, original building materials and original morphology: Two groups of calculations were developed for this approach in order to determine how location influence the equivalent energy. First, the equivalent energy corresponding to the original placements, their original materials and their original openings, was calculated. Second, those dwellings were moved to the locations where the New Mexican pueblos were built, and the corresponding equivalent energy was calculated as well. Therefore, the only feature that changes from one case to the other one is the location. This way, by moving the dwellings from

their original locations to the ones of New Mexico, it can be determined if the values of equivalent energy for each dwelling are influenced by its location and its climatic conditions.

Equivalent energy—Building materials. Just one dwelling, original materials and same locations: By means of this approach, it was possible to determine the links between the original building materials and the equivalent energy. In order to achieve it, the morphological and environmental factors were eliminated. Thus, it is possible to establish the relation between the temperature, the humidity level, the technical characteristics of the building materials and the equivalent energy that correspond to each of them. This way, the consequences that each material has on the indoor ambient and on the equivalent energy can be determined.

Specifically, the calculations presented in this section imply to take one single dwelling and assigning it the main building materials of the other dwellings which were analyzed. Thereby, the chosen dwelling was the wigwam, and the composition of all the envelopes was assigned to it one by one: the cattail mats (its original material), the hogan envelope, the tipi hides, the multilayer envelope that covered the earthlodge, the bundles of grass typical of a grass house, the bark sheets that wrapped the longhouses, the adobe that composed the walls of the pueblos and, finally, the cedar planks that protected the interior of Haida houses. Eight versions of the same dwelling that were situated in the ten locations corresponding to the pueblos of New Mexico.

All the building materials described before were characterized by means of their diffusivity, their effusivity, their thermal transmittance and their thermal lag [78].
