The deterioration of the environment, particularly the changes in the climate, forces society as a whole and all of the production and economic sectors that cause it into a profound re-orientation of production and consumption patterns.
In the European Union, building construction consumes 40% of materials, generates 40% of waste and consumes 40% of primary energy. This data tells us about a deeply impacting sector on the economic, ecological, and social environment, in short, an unsustainable sector.
The importance of the constructive sector gives us an idea that there is a need for a change in the way buildings and their environments are designed, constructed, maintained, renovated and demolished that permits establishing a movement of improvement in the environmental, economic, and social “features” of the towns and cities and in the quality of life of the citizens. In short, it must aim towards a sustainable construction model.
Therefore, the Ministry of Development needs to develop a methodology for the design and construction of the social housing in Extremadura, in order to create housing under sustainable criteria, with better energy performance, and with new renewable energies, furthermore, to guarantee an improvement in the quality of the construction.
The materialization of this idea will be through the construction of two isolated, single-family homes, complying with the Housing typology of the Special Plan.
The Special Housing Plan developed by the Council of Extremadura aims to build homes throughout the Extremaduran region that are accessible to social groups with limited incomes. This plan will be developed with the construction of different types of housing.
These two isolated single-family homes will have the same orientation and with the same structural system, so that they will be subject to the same weather conditions. The first one will be built in such a way that its construction section coincides with the one currently being built in Extremadura for housing in the Special Plan of 80 m2. Said home will be the “pattern house”. In the second home, the different measures of sustainability and renewable energies will be tested, it will be the “experimental housing”. Both houses will guarantee compliance with the Technical Building Code in all its magnitude.
The performance relationship between the experimental and the pattern housing will allow us to obtain comparative data of the passive / active systems tested in our housing in real time. In addition, through a rigorous methodology, it will allow us to know how each of the variables that are modified behave and the consequences on the energy demand of the experimental housing.
The characteristics of the project that gives it uniqueness and novelty are:
It is done for a specific climate, that of the Extremadura region. It is dedicated to a type of building and a specific type of population. It is intended for social housing and therefore a type of low-income population. Real data will be obtained of the efficiency of the methods used in experimental housing when compared with a house called “pattern” whose construction systems are the typical ones used in social housing in Extremadura.
