The objectives of this work are (I) to describe the design and building technology details of a solar school built in a continental semiarid region of central Argentina, (II) to show data from energy, hygrothermal and environmental monitoring, and (III) to compare the behavior of a solar and a conventional school building in response to design and human management factors. Both buildings are located on 36degrees 24' latitude and 63degrees 25' longitude. With respect to the solar school, good outdoor climate conditions during the study period in winter, plus unnecessary auxiliary heating, have led to indoor temperature increasing beyond 24 degreesC under real use conditions. Similarly, overheating of functional areas in autumn and spring was the result of temperate outdoor conditions, uncontrolled use of auxiliary heating and internal gains. Even without incoming sunlight, indoor temperature reached 27 degreesC on some days in summer, while outdoor temperature peaked to 35 degreesC. Based on the parameters of ISO 7730, more than 10% of people experienced discomfort when temperature exceeded 25 degreesC. In contrast, an average indoor temperature of 16 and 21 degreesC was recorded, respectively, for the conventional and the solar building. However, the consumption of natural gas for heating was 50% less in the solar school. Furthermore, this consumption could also be smaller if we take into account that a large proportion of people expressed discomfort at noon because of overheating during the winter time. This demonstrated once more that proper use of heating devices is a very important factor to be considered in solar designs. The work allowed a good validation of methods to assess energy gains and losses during the winter. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.