Nowadays one of the most pressing objectives toward a sustainable development is to construct bioclimatic passive buildings. Vernacular architecture is more and more recognized as a source of inspiration for facing this challenge. The main purpose of this paper is to identify how and how much vernacular architecture implements the most performing bioclimatic strategies in the Mediterranean climate. The work starts from the analysis of the island of Sardinia as a case study. The bioclimatic strategies are analyzed by applying the adaptive thermal comfort approach. Several Design Reference Years (DRYs) are defined by elaborating climate data from stations all over regional territory, and then they are inputted in Szokolay's bioclimatic chart. The results of the analysis are then compared with the characteristics of the Sardinian vernacular built heritage, to verify if and how those strategies were applied. The findings reveal that, in Mediterranean mild, but variable, climate, vernacular architecture incorporates bioclimatic strategies in order to meet both underheating and overheating needs in different ways. In some cases there can be found a strong correlation between constructive and morphological features and climatic contexts. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.