My Wooden House: Unit Cost of Popular Housing in Acre state, Brazil

Maria De Fátima De Brito Lima,Paulo José Prudente De Fontes,Divino Eterno Teixeira,Maísa Santos Joaquim,Álvaro Nogueira De Souza

doi:10.1590/2179-8087.084517

Maria De Fátima De Brito Lima, Paulo José Prudente De Fontes + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/2179-8087.084517

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Abstract

ABSTRACT Housing deficit is a problem that affects low-income populations in Brazil, with over 6 million families affected nationwide and approximately 631 thousand in the North region of the country. Ordinance no. 318/2014 of the Brazilian Ministry of Cities authorized the construction of popular housing using timber as raw material in that region. The objective of this study was to establish the unit cost of a wooden dwelling, referenced in the project Popular Wooden Housing (PWH) developed by the Laboratory of Forest Products and the University of Brasilia (UNB) for the National Rural Housing Program (NRHP). The Basic Unit Cost (BUC/m2 ) methodology was used, with collection of prices in Rio Branco, capital of the state of Acre, for composition of the Final Unit Cost (FCU/m2) of a wood construction. Mean cost of R$ 934.52/m2 was observed from September 2015 to April 2016. Feasibility of wood construction was demonstrated by a final cost per m2 28.06% lower than that of a conventional masonry house.

Highlights

Right to housing, ensured by the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil, is a fundamental element for the consolidation of public housing policies (Brasil, 1988)
Feasibility of wood construction was demonstrated by a final cost per m2 28.06% lower than that of a conventional masonry house
The result of this discussion was the presentation of a technical proposal that culminated in the preparation and publication of Ordinance no. 318/2014 by the Brazilian Ministry of Cities addressing the use of wood in the construction and repair of dwellings within the PNHR/PMCMV

Summary

Introduction

Right to housing, ensured by the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil, is a fundamental element for the consolidation of public housing policies (Brasil, 1988). In 2012, representatives of the Extractive Communities of the North of Brazil requested PNHR managers with regard to the possibility of building their dwellings using wood as main raw material In this context, in order to offer solutions to fill this gap and make the use of wood as construction material feasible within the scope of the PNHR, a group composed of representatives and technicians from several areas of the Government, researchers from the Forest Products Laboratory (LPF) – a research center of the Brazilian Forest Service (SFB) –, and professors from Brazilian universities was formed with the objective of discussing the theme (SFB; LPF, 2013). The technical proposal of this Work Group was based on the project Popular Wooden Housing (PWH) developed in 2002 by the LPF in partnership with the University of Brasília (UnB) (Melo et al, 2002; SFB; LPF, 2013; Brasil, 2014)

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