ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 449
International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy
Session V - VI
DESIGN DECISION-MAKING PROCESS OF
AFFORDABLE LOW ENERGY HOMES IN LATIN
AMERICA
Pablo Jiménez Moreno1 & Masa Noguchi2
1 MEARU (ZEMCH R&D Group), Mackintosh School of Architecture, The Glasgow School of Art, UK,
[email protected]
2 Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, [email protected]
Abstract
The current unmeasured energy consumption is the main reason why the world is suffering
from fuel poverty and it is generating greenhouse and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that
contribute to increase environmental issues, such as global warming. The United States’ Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the residential sector is responsible for 9.9% of
the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions, where developing countries’ 143.5 kg of CO2 emissions per capita could be considered relatively low compared with 967 kg of CO2 per capita of
developed countries. However, the population in developing countries is far larger and rapidly
expanding, which has generated that Brazil’s and México’s percentage of CO2 emissions contributed by the residential sector is above the global average. Therefore, there is an imminent
necessity to shift the Latin American housing design methods in order to achieve sustainable
and affordable energy efficient housing developments. This study explores a methodology to
support the design decision making-process in order to achieve affordable energy efficient
homes inside the Latin American context. With the aim of achieving these principles, the proposed methodology is based on mass customisation design theory and suggests a collaborative design process between users, housing designers and Energy Simulation Tools (ESTs). To
demonstrate its applicability and to clarify its process, the methodology was tested to assess
the design of a typical Brazilian social house. Thus, this study suggests a method that aims to
synthesise mass custom housing design with an energy efficient design.
Keywords
Housing design decision-making process, Latin America, mass customisation, affordable
housing, energy efficiency.
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