Study of Alternatives for the Design of Sustainable Low-Income Housing in Brazil

Pollyanna Fernandes Bianchi, Víctor Yepes, Paulo Cezar Vitorio and Moacir Kripka
Additional contact information
Pollyanna Fernandes Bianchi: Civil and Environmental Engineering Graduate Program (PPGEng), University of Passo Fundo, Passo Fundo 99052-900, Brazil
Víctor Yepes: Institute of Concrete Science and Technology (ICITECH), Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Paulo Cezar Vitorio: Department of Civil Construction, Federal Technological University of Paraná, Curitiba, Paraná 81280-340, Brazil
Moacir Kripka: Civil and Environmental Engineering Graduate Program (PPGEng), University of Passo Fundo, Passo Fundo 99052-900, Brazil

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-15

Abstract: Despite insufficient housing facilities, particularly in developing countries, construction systems are generally selected intuitively or based on conventional solutions sanctioned by practice. The present study aims to evaluate different options for the design of low-income housing in Brazil by integrating the life cycle assessment (LCA) into the decision-making process. To achieve this objective, three single-family projects with different construction systems were selected and analyzed. The most sustainable design was selected through the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The considered parameters, which were obtained through a survey with professionals and customers, included cost, environmental impact, thermal comfort, construction time, and cultural acceptance. LCA and life cycle cost assessment (LCCA) were performed with the frontier’s system considering the cradle-to-gate cycle, which included the extraction of raw materials, manufacture of building materials, and housing construction. The projects were modelled using Autodesk Revit software with the Tally application for LCA evaluation. The results indicated that light steel frame houses present a better behavior than other conventional alternatives, and the integration of building information modelling with LCA and LCCA in the design phase can lead to the development of more sustainable houses.

Keywords: low-income housing; life cycle assessment; analytic hierarchy process; sustainability; decision making (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/4757/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/4757/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:9:p:4757-:d:542116

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().