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Following the Angolan ruling party's crushing defeat of the opposition in the first postwar elections, held in September 2008, the Movement for the Total Liberation of Angola (MPLA) has proceeded to consolidate in the last year its hegemonic rule in the country, effectively giving rise to another African hybrid regime. The regime's security and financial apparatus and national institutions have since been further molded to serve the Presidency and the military and business elites. Having acquired its democratic credentials and secure of the strength of its relevance in the international petroleum arena, Luanda has transformed a once failed state into a reformed autocracy.

Les historiens d'art présentent d'habitude les façades de quelques églises vénitiennes de la fin du XVIIe siècle comme une dégénérescence des façades classiques, une prolifération vicieuse des ornements au mépris de la logique des lignes, une orgie gratuite et de mauvais goût. Mais si nous contemplions attentivement les façades pittoresques et grandiloquentes de San Moisé, de l'Ospedaletto, de Santa Maria Zobénigo, les plus blâmées de Venise, nous pourrons trouver cette condamnation trop sévère et même injuste. Il est vrai que ces façades n'ont pas une valeur tectonique ; mais il faut aussi confesser que l'idée et le mot de « façade » sont déjà anti constructifs et que sobriété ne veut pas dire nécessité. Nous croyons, au XXe siècle, que la façade doit découvrir ce qu'elle cache ; mais cette idée n'était pas aussi évidente à certaines époques et, même en l'acceptant, on doit laisser à la façade (c'est-à-dire, à son architecte) la possibilité de s'exprimer selon ses moyens.

Green façades consist of the application of vegetation on buildings' vertical enve-lope. The integration of vegetation into the building fabric improves not only the aesthetic appearance, but also the energy performance of the building itself. The introduction of green façades mainly aims at a passive thermal control of build-ings' for enhancing sustainability of the built environment. An experimental green façade was tested at the University of Bari, in a Mediterranean climate context. The experimental green façade was south-exposed and realized with evergreen plants, following the characteristics of the indirect typology. A portion of the south wall was left bare to be used as a control for comparison. The contribution of the green façade in terms of passive climate control was particularly relevant during summer. Vegetation affects the boundary climatic conditions and the surface temperature. A reduction in sensible air and surface temperature of up to 2.2°C and 6.7°C, respectively, was recorded. The wall behind vegetation received 95.6% less solar radiative energy than the bare wall. These results were a direct conse-quence of the two main cooling mechanisms that characterize the green façade, the evapotranspiration and the shading effect. These effects affected the heat transfer reducing the energy input through the covered wall. The reduction of the incoming heat through the covered wall was read as energy saving, since it inevita-bly affects the building energy demand for cooling. It was found that the green fa-çade allowed a mean daily energy saving of 1.1 MJ m-2 and that 90.9% of this was obtained at daytime. These findings contribute to increasing the knowledge of en-ergy functioning and of the real advantages provided by green façades.