Ask HN: What natural air-conditioning solutions are there?

Where I live in the Dordogne in France houses (and outbuildings) are traditionally built with high steeply sloped roofs to create an air space at the top of the house to collect the hot air in summer - allowing cooler air to fill the rooms below.

In addition we have external shutters on all of the windows and these are closed on the sunny side of the house. With an insect screen on the window you can the leave the window open as the shutters are not air tight so they allow a gently breeze to enter each room.

Also it is worth pointing out that the walls of my house are stone (60cm thick) and these act as a great heat sink.

It will probably hit 35C this afternoon but the house will remain cool.

Lots of plants, loads of them, all well watered.

Blinds down but windows open (if there is a breeze).

Dressing for the weather - looks of thin cotton. Shoes off. Drink lots of water.

Move somewhere cool ;)

Buckminster Fuller [1] did quite a bit of research on natural cooling and figured out how to cool buildings using Berhoulli's principle [2]. Unfortunately, I am unable to find any good references online, so you may have to chase such information down in books. :)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoullis_principle

Not a form of AC necessarily but I know Chinese people put straw woven mats on chairs and on the floor to sit/sleep on when there's a lack of AC to help keep cool

In dry climates Swamp Coolers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swamp_cooler work well.

Persian windcatchers.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher

And they are huge, try to find pictures with humans to get an idea of the scale. One day I hope to make it to Yazd to see the real thing.

Girls waving large fans.

Freezer ziplock bag full of ice to go around your neck will cool your core down quick. You can also just regularly goto the faucet and rinse your wrists and neck with cold water to help cool your body down as well. I live on the river, so I keep the windows open for the breeze and the blinds down to block sunlight. I've heard of constructing a water tank that fits to your windows, and what happens is the sun heats the water up over the course of the day, but still lets water in, and then at night when its cool outside, the windows maintain an even temperature releasing heat. I know some people do this in their kitchen windows using clear glass bottles filled with water stacked on top of eachother to fill the window.