The structure and the foundations are made of reinforced concrete to protect the people during earthquakes. Like the vernacular architecture the external and internal walls are made of brick and with cement mortar finishing.  The internal space is organized in the same way for the two floors, the internal height is 2.7m and the ground floor is raised 0.5m from the ground level. The choice to be raised from the ground was used also in vernacular architecture to be safe from the run-off water that flows in the streets due to the monsoon.
The walls are characterized by a brick work with a finish plaster to increase the durability of the construction, because it protects from the heavy rain of the monsoon. The windows have been designed with a single glazed clear glass of 6mm thickness and 1.08m2 of surface. On the façade the windows are assembled three by three to have a high surface to let the light going inside.
To be an efficient building is important to have low values of infiltration, but in Nepal it is impossible because of the poor installation of doors and windows and the poor building materials.
In correspondence of the windows overhangs have been designed to prevent overheating in warm season to reduce energy consumptions for cooling, they are 0.6m length from the façade. In vernacular architecture of Kathmandu the roofs had also the function of overhangs for thermal motivation (repair from the sun), but also to protect the building from the falling rain.
The external walls are characterized by a transmittance of 0.238 W/m*K and the single clear glass has a transmittance of 5.38W/m*K, but it should be improved to a double-low-e glass, so to have improvement in summer and in winter.
The roof is different from the vernacular buildings of Kathmandu, because the reinforced concrete is designed to be waterproof from the rain and to have a high durability, in fact it is designed flat to be positive to the thermal point of view, this is a typical construction in the mountains of Nepal.
The use of this kind of materials is almost for the poverty of the area. The bricks are simply to made and to find, but they also have good thermal performance to maintain a good temperature inside during the whole year. The simulations are being done step by step: the results of simulation of the base house with provision of insulation indicated that there is more than 50% reduction in energy demand with adaptation to passive house design strategy i.e. 50mm insulation added to the brick wall in comparison to the common house which has only brick wall without insulation.
However, there is no significant degradation in energy demand when 100mm and 150mm insulation is added to the brick wall in comparison to the addition of 50mm insulation. This make evident that 50mm insulation is enough to maintain the proper indoor environment with optimum use of energy. With decrease in energy demand there is also decrease in energy cost. Result obtained also showed that there is increment in level of thermal comfort with the modification in house.
With the strategy proposed, the energy needs of a building in Kathmandu are reduced in comparison with the old buildings that uses a lot of energy. The energy demands are lower than the old buildings, because the new buildings need to be equipped with passive strategies.