Sustainability is a concept that has monopolised a large number of the scientific debates in a wide range of spheres connected not only with architecture, urban planning and construction, but also with the product market, tourism, culture, etc. However, sustainability is indissolubly linked to vernacular architecture and the lessons this architecture of the past can teach us for the future. The concept of sustainability as it is presented is wide-reaching and encompasses not only environmental issues but also sociocultural and socioeconomic questions. The lessons we can learn from studying vernacular architecture in these three broad spheres are manifold, and can help us not only to further the conservation and retrieval of this architecture already in existence but to rethink new architecture in the light of what we have learned.