Northwest arid area of China is located deep inland and has a typical temperate continental climate, which is characterized by low precipitation, high evaporation, and low humidity. House is one of the basic conditions for human existence, and human dwellings have been constantly updated with the development of society. With development of times, rural residents have higher requirements for performance and quality of houses. Although local traditional houses have advantages of being friendly to nature, adapting to environment, and low cost, most of the houses built by villagers have defects of imperfect building space, poor indoor thermal environment, and high heating energy consumption. How to improve the living quality of villagers while reducing consumption of fossil energy in residential buildings? Rural residences in the northwest arid area of China were taken as study object. Space optimization design strategy of local rural residences, which adapt to modern life and technological development, was explored in paper. A variety of renewable energy sources, including solar energy, biomass energy, wind energy, air energy, are discussed in their integrated applications to improve thermal environment of the rural residences. It was shown that appropriate building technology integration application can create an indoor thermal environment to meet human comfort at low cost.
 

sustainable design, rural residences, northwest arid area of China, integrated application.