Absolutely. Lots of societies have used passive heating and cooling systems, well-suited to local climates. And we could learn a lot from them to help decrease our energy use.
There’s a lot of places you can build (partially) underground to take advantage of relatively stable ground temperature and natural insulation, too. Ain’t just fictional hobbits that lived in holes in the ground.
This works fine in low humidity environments (deserts), but not in humid environments where the water cannot evaporate to absorb heat from air. And humid, hot environments are the most dangerous (see wet bulb temperature).
There are plenty of tutorials that explain and teach to build a swamp cooler—basically, all you need is a bucket with lid, a fan, wadding and water.
When a wind tower is integrated with a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat#/media/File:Qanat_wind_tower.svg system, it works even in humid.
The key is drawing in air through underground passages - either irrigation channels or just cellars. The ground acts as a cold store (heat sink), cooling incoming air before it enters the house.
The tower + wind catcher has no thermal role - it must simply create low pressure and keep the draft going.
Looking at this image got me thinking, we should really use natural technology first amd supplement it with artificial technology as that would save more power and lower maintenance demands
All technology, by definition, is artificial. But there is a continuum of environmental impact depending on the technology and environment—digging a hole in the dirt with a wooden stick has negligible effects on the health of the local ecosystem; digging a hole in the dirt with a nuclear pulse device not so much.
But nuclear pulse devices are excellent for propulsion if you need to move stuff between planets, and have negligible environmental impact in the already radiation-soaked vaccuum of space.
Probably passive (taking advantage of energy and natural laws already present in the environment, like wind and convection) vs. active (making use of secondary forms of power like electricity, burning fuels, etc.) is a better distinction. If all you gotta do is e.g. at most open some vents at one time of day and close them at another, and not rely on the delivery of external power sources from human industry, calling it “passive” is pretty fair.
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