Thermal comfort and air renewal in social housing: a case study in Uberlândia, Brazil

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted aspects that require greater attention in residential buildings, especially in social housing developments. For example, thermal comfort and air renewal, play an important role in the environmental quality of housing and control of spreading pathogens, including coronavirus. The challenge is adequately providing these attributes in Brazilian social housing (SH) as naturally ventilated buildings where predominantly low-income families live. Considering it, a study was developed using computational simulation to evaluate the interaction between the indicators of thermal comfort (using the adaptive model) and air renewal (in air changes per hour - ACH) in a horizontal semi-detached typology of social housing provided by the Brazilian government program Minha Casa, Minha Vida, located in Uberlândia city, Minas Gerais state, Brazil. Ventilated roofs, variable window opening patterns, effective ventilation areas, and horizontal window shadings were the behavioral and physical interventions suggested to comparative analyses according to their performance to the indicators. The paper aims to present and discuss the main results obtained in terms of positive trends for the analyzed indicators’ performance and for the typology and location studied, seeking the achievement of better ventilated and thermally comfortable habitats. Additionally, a brief study on the most appropriate adaptive thermal comfort model for studies in the city of Uberlândia is presented, contributing to the future performance of more accurate thermal comfort analyses in SH, aiming at more assertive and resilient provision of guidances for renovations.