Abstract

Medicine and architecture are disciplines with the main objectives of satisfying the fundamental needs of human beings: health, comfort, well-being, safety, and ensuring an acceptable quality of life in a sustainable habitat. In both areas of knowledge, the advances and the most innovative proposals in the fields of research and teaching are focused on transversal knowledge and the use of learning methods through problem solving (learning by doing). The student competitions called “Solar Decathlon” are focused on the development of these concepts, in which prototypes of sustainable and, as far as possible, healthy social housing are tested. In these university competitions, the design of energy-efficient and comfortable living environments that contribute to the health of the occupants are encouraged; however, the methodology for evaluating the “comfort conditions” stipulated in the competition rules considers only parameters that can be monitored by sensors. For this article, the prototypes presented by the “Solar Decathlon Team of the University of Seville” to the editions of said competition held in Latin America and Europe (in 2015 and 2019, respectively) are being studied. The present research starts from the fact that the unique consideration of measurable indices (such as temperature, humidity, etc.), is clearly insufficient when it comes to evaluating the real conditions of habitability and comfort that a domestic architectural space presents. For this reason, a theoretical–practical analysis is carried out by means of surveys, with the final objective of determining a methodology for evaluating comfort—complementary to that of the competition—which assesses other relevant issues and which, in short, takes into account the repercussion on people’s health. From our analysis, we conclude that at least these two methodologies should be used to evaluate comfort because they are individually considered incomplete in terms of the data provided by each one of them. The survey-based methodology provides complementary information on comfort and health that could be taken into account in future editions of Solar Decathlon.

Highlights

  • Comfort and HealthThroughout time, human health and habitat have maintained a close relationship, derived from their common objective: to achieve minimum levels of comfort that allow the presence of the humanInt

  • If we analyze the inherent aspects of the person that condition them to define a comfortable space, we will find age, sex, race, psychological state, illnesses or disabilities, etc.; as opposed to others that depend on the environment, external to the person, at the moment in which we evaluate comfort: natural or artificial light, noise, silence, color, texture, humidity, temperature, etc

  • The concern of the members of the Solar Decathlon Team of the University of Seville, regarding the comfort conditions and the degree of healthiness provided by the designed models, is evident if we look at the results obtained in the two most recent editions in which they have competed: SDLatinoAmerica

Read more

Summary

Objectives

The aim of this article is to compare different comfort assessment methodologies to determine which is the most suitable from a health point of view

Methods
Results
Conclusion
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call