Climate change will bring changes to our living conditions, particularly in urban areas. Climate-responsive design strategies through courtyards can help to moderate temperatures and reduce the thermal stress of its occupants. Thermal response inside courtyard is affected not only by its morphological composition but also by subjective factors. Thus, standardized thermal scales may not reflect the stress of the occupants. This study investigated the impact on thermal attenuation provided by a courtyard located in a tropical climate under extreme cold and hot synoptic conditions by means of local thermal sensation scales. Microclimatic variables were monitored, simultaneously with the application of a thermal comfort questionnaire, by using weather stations installed outside and inside the courtyard. The Modified Physiological Equivalent Temperature Index (mPET) was utilized to predict the heat stress. Calibration was conducted using linear regression to attribute particular thermal sensation votes to correspondent mPET values. It was found that thermal sensation can be affected by factors such as psychological, behavioral, and physiological. The courtyard’s form provides a passive cooling effect, stabilizing interior thermal sensation, with attenuation peaks of 6.4 °C on a cold day and 5.0 °C on a hot day. Courtyards are an alternative passive strategy to improve thermal ambience in tropical climate, counterbalancing climate change.

Climate change impact is one of the most important global concerns at present. In the building environment, climate-responsive design may help to enhance the adaptation capacity through a better building energy performance. In this sense, this study addresses an adaptation strategy to reduce the effects of global warming on low-income houses, for which bioclimatic passive strategies should be prioritized, aiming to improve environmental sustainability. The technique chosen to be analyzed is thermal mass for cooling. Thus, the goal is to evaluate the energy consumption and thermal performance impact of implementing bermed earth-sheltered walls on bedrooms in low-income housing (LIH), considered deployed in tropical climate regions. For that, a base scenario (1961–1990) is considered, alongside two future scenarios: 2020 (2011 to 2040) and 2050 (2041 to 2070), both considering the effects of climate change, according to the Fourth Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The methodologies adopted are (i) computational simulation to estimate the annual energy consumption demand and (ii) quantification of the cooling degree-hours (CDH), with the subsequent comparative analysis based on Brazilian regulation for energy efficiency in buildings (RTQ-R). The predictions show that there will be an increase in the energy consumption for cooling and in the CDH in both 2020 and 2050 scenarios, regardless of using a bermed earth-sheltered wall. Nonetheless, this adaptive measure enables the building to be resilient in terms of cooling energy demand in the 2020s, since it is 12.3% lower than in the building without the strategy use, compared with the base scenario. In the 2050s, resilience was almost reached with energy consumption only 10.7% higher, for the same conditions described previously. Therefore, bermed earth-sheltered walls work as a climate-responsive design strategy to face the potential global warming effects, promoting building sustainability in tropical climate regions.

We focus on the surface urban heat island (SUHI) and the spatiotemporal relationship between land use and surface temperatures (T_s) in Cuiabá-Várzea Grande, Mato Grosso, one of the major urban agglomerations of central-western Brazil, which has suffered intense urbanization processes since the 1960s. Supervised maximum likelihood classifications of optical bands of Landsat Thematic Mapper (Landsat TM) imagery from 1986 and 2007 are applied to generate land use/cover maps. Surface emissivity is determined using the logarithmic transformation of the normalized difference vegetation index. The T_s is retrieved from the thermal bands utilizing a radiative transfer equation. In both cities, urban expansion followed two main development axes, which are reflected in the spatial patterns of T_s. The highest values of T_s were found in bare soil and urbanized areas. Between 1986 and 2007, T_s increased 0.96°C on average and a maximum of 5.49°C in the urban agglomeration. The SUHI in Várzea Grande suffered intensification with an increase of 1.34°C in the downtown area. This tendency was stronger in the center of Cuiabá, where T_s increased 3.12°C. Slowing this rapid rate of temperature increase would demand decisive intervention by municipal authorities, such as restricting annual occupation taxes, reducing the occupation coefficient in new districts, preserving native vegetation, and designating new green areas.

Este estudo consiste em uma avaliação do ciclo de vida (ACV) aplicada a uma edificação de ensino localizada na região Centro-Oeste do Brasil. O objetivo foi identificar a contribuição dos sistemas construtivos de fundação e superestrutura, ambos em concreto armado, vedações compostas por tijolos cerâmicos e argamassas, cobertura com telhas termoacústicas, esquadrias em alumínio e revestimentos cerâmicos nas categorias de impacto ambiental definidas na metodologia. Considerou-se a abordagem de berço ao portão para uma unidade funcional de 1,0 m² de área construída. O inventário do ciclo de vida (ICV) foi elaborado a partir da base de dados Ecoinvent 2.0, adotando-se o World ReCiPe midpoint H como método de avaliação do impacto do ciclo de vida (AICV). Utilizou-se o software SimaPro 8.0 para modelagem. Constatou-se que os sistemas de superestrutura, cobertura e vedações foram os mais contributivos, o que reforça a necessidade de busca de alternativas inovadoras para minimizar os impactos ambientais dos sistemas tradicionalmente praticados. Contribui-se dessa forma para o desenvolvimento da ACV no Brasil ao se discutir os gargalos e dificuldades encontrados para sua aplicação. Demonstram-se ainda as adaptações necessárias nos inventários dos processos europeus de fabricação para maior adequabilidade à realidade brasileira, visto que os nacionais ainda são incipientes.