Korestia is located in northwest Macedonia, 18 km. north of the city of Kastoria. They consist of 9 settlements one of which is the under study village, Ano Kraniona. The 7 of the 9 villages are entirely made of mud-bricks, mud-bricks which are manufactured locally with the assistance of all residents of the settlement. The rural population of the area wisely used earth (clay) as a construction material, which met many basic standards. It was cheap, resistant to the elements, could protect from cold and was supple and fully recyclable.

The typology of the buildings in Korestia follows the previous architectural examples of the area (Kastoria-Prespa) only that instead of stone the basic construction material is clay in the form of mud- bricks. We study the way of living of the local residents and also examine the conditions of thermal comfort within their houses.

This research explores in detail, clay as a material and makes a reference to all its properties, describes how it can be used and its historical presence in the global architecture.
It examines in depth a typical residence (residence Panopoulos), documenting and studying the way is built, analyzes the materials used and presents the whole of the house including its surrounding auxiliary buildings.

In our attempt to try and understand how the mud-bricks work in the construction, we have conducted a series of experiments which took place in officially recognized laboratories, those of the Ministry of Environment Energy & Climate Change, which examined the resistance of mud-bricks in compression and the Centre for Renewable Energy Sources were we have tested a series of samples in order to find the coefficient of thermal conductivity (k) (λ).

The two experiments have been successful and the results of the second experiment were used to update the data in a digital energy simulator, via which we have simulated the thermal comfort conditions prevailing in a typical residence of the area throughout the year.