Resilience Ruler for Energy Efficiency: An Evaluation of Social Housing Refurbishment

Abstract

This study evaluated refurbishment focusing on energy efficiency to improve the resilience of the built environment of social housing from five and ten years ago. Both residential complexes studied were built by the Brazilian social housing program “Minha Casa Minha Vida” (“My House, My Life” in English) in the city of Uberlândia, Minas Gerais state, Brazil. Design science research (DSR) and post-occupancy evaluation (POE) were applied to the energy audit process for built environments. This work aimed to study energy efficiency, behavior, and resilience in the built environment; to introduce the concepts related to the development of indicators and a questionnaire on energy efficiency; and to develop the Resilience Ruler (RR) for energy efficiency and its application in two social housing complexes located in Uberlândia. This paper presents a methodology for energy efficiency resilience assessment (RR) and its result. The RR was developed to measure the resilience level in the built environment based on energy efficiency indicators. The main results indicated that the materialities in the refurbishment and house maintenance received the worst assessment. The roof and the walls materials aren’t compatible with the local climate and the residents usually don’t have maintenance habits.