There was a time when people paid little importance to the environmental aspect of construction of buildings. Population was less and so the inhabitations were not as dense with buildings and constructions as they are today. A lot of writings are available in any of the Artikelverzeichnis on this. If you access one of them and go down the memory lane, you will have a good glimpse of the historical perspective of the art of building construction.

Despite such lack of knowledge about the environmental aspects of the buildings in the modern sense, old time buildings were greatly commensurate with a free and palatable environment. Most of the buildings in those days used to have some type of Garten or other and this catered to the requirement of not only exterior decoration of the premises but also the environmental protection of the surroundings.

Vegetables and fruits were all very fresh and cheaper in comparison those days.  Therefore, many people liked to set up Naturkost besides their residence along with other constructions. Even when they did it with the sole intention of getting some fresh vegetables and fruits, the implications of the same was environmental protection in the broader senses. 

Fertighaus of course was a later concept that came up gradually when the theory of sustainable building construction started to get into the mainstream. Some of the prominent green buildings of to day are the Gherkin of Switzerland and Reichstag in Berlin.