In this work we propose a coupling of vortex methods, which are part of particle methods, with penalization technique in order to handle in an accurate and easy way complex media composed of solid, fluid and porous areas. This immersed boundary approach indeed enables on one hand to keep the efficiency and the robustness of vortex methods and, on the other hand, allows to model the three different media without prescribing any boundary condition. In the present study, we propose an application of this immersed boundary method to passive flow control past a semi-circular cylinder. This control is achieved adding porous areas around the obstacle in order to regularize the generated wake and smooth the flow dynamics.