Relying on passive climate-responsive strategies, traditional dwellings can effectively control the indoor thermo-hygrometric and daylighting conditions by taking advantage of some favorable climatic elements like wind, solar radiation, etc. Furthermore, the building's elements and spaces can be regulated to make the indoor microclimate reach the comfort limits thanks to these passive strategies. In this paper, the Thousand Pillars Dwelling (TPD) is taken as a research objective to explore its climate adaptation strategies and effectiveness for the local climate in the view of passive elements (PEs) and passive spaces (PSs). By the methodologies of literature reviews, field investigations and software simulations, the buffer effect (BE) created by PEs (composed of doors, windows, walls etc.) and PSs (composed of patios, corridors etc.) contributing to the improvement of indoor comfort level (ICL) is researched qualitatively. An additional study on in-situ measurements of air temperature, relative humidity, air velocity and illuminance in diverse parts of TPD was carried out to research their effectiveness of climate adaptation quantitatively. This study shows that BEs are effective at mitigating the impact of outdoor climate on internal spaces, which is helpful for the extension of indoor comfort time (EICT) by 3472 h per year. The research results of passive strategies are summarized from the study case of TPD and its effectiveness of climate adaptation can provide some methods and implications to create more comfortable indoor environments for rural residences. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.