Session 10 Paper 7, CIBSE ASHRAE Technical Symposium, Imperial College, London, UK
18th and 19th April 2012
Design and operation of homes has become a major concern for designers due to the great amount of energy consumed by these buildings. Current research in the field of architecture and building systems is focused on providing solutions that decrease energy consumption, produce less CO2 and provide comfort to users. The main aim of this research is to design a sustainable home with passive systems for a poor community located 12 Km away from Puebla city in central Mexico (latitude: 19o N, altitude: 2,100 m, temperate climate, 8,000 inhabitants). This town is called Azumiatla, which is an underdeveloped community, lacking of regular access to drinking water, sewage connection, toilets and rubbish collection service. A previous study of this community (Mundo et al, 2010) shows that houses have no daylight access or views, have minimum natural ventilation and are made with poor thermal and acoustic materials such as cardboard sheets, steel sheets and concrete block. Architectural projects developed for Azumiatla include: local materials, walls and roof materials with thermal and acoustic properties, toilet solution using “dry” toilets, green roof, green garden for vegetables, daylight access, natural ventilation, and energy efficient oven and lamps. These projects have taken into consideration the lifestyle (religion, social interaction within the family members, occupation, cooking tradition, health condition) and the average number of members of the families in Azumiatla, which is 6 people; therefore, these houses include 2-3 bedrooms, dinning/kitchen/living area, one bathroom, altar area, corn storage, pigpen and playground. Keywords: sustainable housing, low energy consumption, passive design.
