Place, Architecture Design and Thermal Comfort: A Municipal Day Care Childhood Center in Colônia Z3, Pelotas/RS, Brazil

Abstract

This article reports the discussion about the multiple relations between architectural design and "place" using two different approaches in order to characterize the interfaces of design challenges. The first is qualitative, highlighting the lack of dialogue between the standard-project architecture, the guidelines recommended by the COEDI (Coordenação Geral de Educação Infantil (General Coordination of Early Childhood Education)) of the Ministry of Education, socio-technical and cultural-environmental context and pedagogy. The second, more quantitative, addresses the problems generated by dissociation between the constructive solutions and the bioclimatic demands of different insertion contexts of architectural design in the Brazilian Bioclimatic Zone 2. Initially planned to use a conventional building system, it was transposed to the Wall System, developed by MVC Componentes Plásticos Ltda. The simulation evaluates and compares the level of thermal comfort of the building with two envelope systems. The study reports the analysis of the thermal comfort of a Type C unit, based on thermodynamic simulation, through the software Design Builder (version 4.2.0.054). The analysis of the building simulation results was based on the adaptive comfort model ASHRAE 55/2010. Later, three optimization measures of the thermal comfort level of the building were tested, based on thermal insulation and absorptance coverage, in addition to sun protection system design for the window frames. Preliminary results for the level of comfort of long permanence environments indicate a low level of thermal comfort, the 50% in MVC system and around 60% in the conventional system, and also that the greater discomfort comes from the heat. Based on performance optimization measures of building, the MVC system reached 66.4% of thermal comfort compared to 62% in the conventional system. The results show the importance of adapting the standard project to the local climatic context.