Environmental rehabilitation of the envelope of buildings. The case of two "rational" houses in Mendoza, Argentina.

GANEM, CAROLINA; ESTEVES, ALFREDO; COCH, HELENA

Beirut, Libano

Conferencia; 22nd PLEA - International Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture. Environmental sustainability: The challenge of awareness in developing societies.; 2005

Notre Dame University

One of the most common typologies in Mendoza, Argentina is the “rational” house derived from the European Modern Movement of the first half of the 20th century. These are two-storey houses with a very poor envelope regarding its possibilities of adaptation to climate, built on the confidence of mechanical conditioning of spaces to reach comfort. In the ‘70s, occupants have spontaneously performed adaptations to the envelope to reduce the use of mechanical conditioning technologies because of higher energy costs. As houses still do not meet the comfort requirements without mechanical conditioning,  the scope of this work is to propose an environmental rehabilitation of the envelope. In order to determine the behaviour of the envelope as a filter between the interior and the exterior, and the opportunities to environmentally rehabilitate this typology, two identical rational houses located in different orientations: North and West (in the southern hemisphere) are being studied with experimental measurements. It was important to identify the influence in the interior temperature due to orientation and to envelope regulation of openings and filters by occupants. Thermal simulation of buildings in an hour basis has been made in order to identify these two variables. Conclusions address the possibilities of rehabilitation considering typology, orientation and user habits.