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From a Third World vision, the present paper deals with some international methods to evaluate sustainability in Projects and realizations, at architectural and urban scale, in order to, valuate in a comparative way, strengths and weakness, mainly taking into account their possible application in developing countries, and particularly in Cuba. The research started by looking for a method to evaluate sustainability in the University of Informatics Sciences, and it was later on extended with the inclusion of the African experience. The evaluative categories differ from one system to the other, but all of them emphasize the environmental dimension of sustainability. Only two methods coming from developing countries include social dimension and the necessity of an endogenous approach, which is an important current challenge for Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the actions toward a more sustainable development, a poor understanding of the role of architecture and urban design to achieve this goal is appreciated in Cuba. The objective of this paper is to show how it is possible to improve the sustainability in a built environment, by simple and economic transformations, taking as study object the Universidad de Ciencias Informáticas (UCI). A qualitative urban diagnosis was carried out in order to define the main performance strategies. The proposals are progressive, based on minimum intervention and maximum impact. Some of them are: rezoning to reduce distances, using alternative transportation means as bicycles and zero energy minibuses, incorporating new services, using renewable sources of energy and creating an ecological park with a wetland for the gray water treatment. This diagnosis allowed to select the more problematic buildings to be transformed based on a qualitative and quantitative evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the actions toward a more sustainable development, a poor understanding of the role of architecture and urban design to achieve this goal is appreciated in Cuba. The objective of this paper is to show how it is possible to improve the sustainability in a built environment, by simple and economic transformations, taking as study object the Universidad de Ciencias Informáticas (UCI). A qualitative urban diagnosis was carried out in order to define the main performance strategies. The proposals are progressive, based on minimum intervention and maximum impact. Some of them are: rezoning to reduce distances, using alternative transportation means as bicycles and zero energy minibuses, incorporating new services, using renewable sources of energy and creating an ecological park with a wetland for the gray water treatment. This diagnosis allowed to select the more problematic buildings to be transformed based on a qualitative and quantitative evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]