The application of the 'fabric first' approach to improve thermal comfort and energy efficiency in affordable housing in Southern Brazil

In 2009 the Brazilian government committed to support the construction of nearly 24 million new dwellings by 2022 through its housing programme Minha Casa, Minha Vida (My House, My Life). The initiative aims to tackle the housing shortfall of 5.546 million residential units and the 10.948 million units that are considered inadequate dwellings with poor living conditions. The potential economic, social and environmental impact of such large initiative is vast and consequently it is essential that the new dwellings are planned, designed and built to meet high levels of energy efficiency and thermal comfort. The ‘Fabric First’ is widely recognised as a design approach with great potential to deliver energy efficient and comfortable housing in a variety of different climates. Its principles have already been successfully incorporated in many buildings across European countries and elsewhere. Despite its success, research to date shows that the application of this approach has not been explored yet in the Brazilian context. In this work, ways of improving the thermal comfort and performance of Brazilian mass housing in three cities in southern Brazil (Curitiba, São Paulo and Porto Alegre) through the Fabric First principles were explored. The research was developed through sensitivity analyses of key envelope parameters and case studies. The sensitivity analysis was carried out in order to identify the best performance and the most cost-effective building envelope combination, using a simplified affordable Brazilian housing typology model that had its properties varied. A case study based on a generic representative model and a real optimised case study of typical 1-floor 2-bedroom mass housing typology were evaluated through computational thermal simulations and monitored data. The results of the sensitivity analyses were then used to inform the case studies performance analyses, developed in parallel to a cost analysis. Key findings from this study revealed that typica