Fecha de publicación: -- Fuente: Materials Earthen architecture endures in some of Earth’s harshest climates, revealing exceptional resilience to heat, aridity, and weathering. This paper examines the durability of three traditional settlements: Yazd (Iran), M’Zab (Algeria), and Matmata (Tunisia) which have withstood centuries of extreme thermal and environmental conditions. These sites share hot, arid or semi-arid climates, strong solar radiation, and large diurnal temperature swings, with occasional intense rainfall challenging earthen materials. The study explores how climatic stressors shape material behaviour, settlement morphology, and surface protection strategies. Through comparative analysis, this study identifies key adaptive mechanisms. All three settlements examined rely on local earth, sometimes reinforced with straw or lime, formed in load-bearing walls, a layered construction, with protective plaster coatings. Passive thermal regulation is achieved through wind towers in Yazd, dense clustering and reflective lime coatings in M’Zab, and underground dwellings in Matmata. The outcomes of this paper reveal that compact urban layouts and shaded courtyards further minimize exposure and optimize microclimates. Key mechanisms enhancing longevity, including moisture control, thermal inertia, self-shading geometries, and surface treatments such as limewash and clay plaster, mitigate erosion, thermal fatigue, and weathering. These findings are contextualized within the ArchiSpace (Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Action Network) project’s objectives for sustainable off-Earth construction, which aim to design and test habitat subsystems using in-situ resources under off-Earth analogue conditions.