The amount of time people spend inside buildings is significant. Indoor environment quality deficiencies in some of these buildings may affect the health of its users. Therefore, a systematic literature review has been conducted to assess the quality of indoor environments in existing buildings in Latin America. The objectives of this review are (1) identifying countries and building types whose indoor environment quality has been analyzed the most, (2) identifying most used evaluation strategies, (3) identifying comfort types and most evaluated variables, and (4) determining whether or not Latin American buildings are comfortable and what local factors contribute to that effect. From the 100 selected papers for this analysis, it was noted that Brazil and Argentina led the studies on residences and schools. It was also noted that hygrothermal comfort was the most analyzed comfort type, with temperature and humidity leading the number of studies. Finally, this review shows a lack of studies including buildings whose users are sensitive to indoor environmental quality, such as nurseries, senior homes, or health facilities. Additionally, there is a sustained discrepancy between objective measuring methods and user perception. Furthermore, a detailed analysis of 88 buildings shows that in Latin America, 67.5% of buildings are uncomfortable; thus, it is necessary to improve the designs and regulatory standards, to educate users, and to improve building monitoring management at the operational stage.

The energy consumption of buildings accounts for 22% of total global energy use and 13% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In this context, this study aims to evaluate the energy, economic, and environmental performance of housing in Chile built according to the Passivhaus (PH) standard. The standard was applied to housing in eight representative climate zones with a single-family residence as reference. The analysis incorporated passive strategies, which are considered as pillars of the PH. The energy performance was analyzed using the Passive House Planning Package software (PHPP), version 9.6a. The results showed that when every passive strategy is implemented, the heating energy demand decreases by 93%, while the refrigeration demand is nonexistent. These results were achieved through a 37% increase in the overall initial budget investment, which will be amortized over an 11-year period. In this way, the primary energy consumption is reduced by 32% and, correspondingly, CO₂ emissions are reduced by 39%. In modern Chile, it is difficult (but not impossible) to incorporate PH. However, governmental programs and aids could represent an initial step. Therefore, this research will help to identify strategies for incorporating PH in Chile, with the aim of improving the energy performance of housing.

The constant increase in the requirement for electric energy on the part of the service sector has driven the development of tools for the analysis of energy data regarding the management of buildings. Particularly university campuses are made up of buildings for different purposes and uses. Therefore, this work proposes to develop a method capable of providing clear and easy-to-understand information to track electricity end-use by means of two-dimensional graphs. The aim of the method is to analyse the data of the electricity consumption of one or several buildings and compare them with regard to their surface areas and uses, as well as to obtain a correlation with the outdoor temperature. The visual analysis of the building electricity consumption in the campus 'Sciences et Technologies' of the University of Bordeaux in France is based on graphs which include electricity use intensity, time series of daily electricity consumption, scatter diagrams of consumption versus heating degree-days, and boxplots for daily consumption profiles. This analysis permits characterising the electricity consumption of the different types of buildings and determining a trends of energy end-use in the short as well as in the long term.

Accessibility to housing is crucial for people with disabilities as it provides them with equal opportunities and allows them to live independently. A systematic literature review has been conducted to understand the current research on accessibility in housing for people with disabilities in Latin America. The study analysed 56 papers and used co-word analysis to identify common themes and topics within the documents. The results of the analysis showed that Brazil (61%) is the country with the most research on the subject, physical disability, at 36%, is the impairment most analysed, and interventions or analysis for the older people (45%) in their homes is the most researched type of population. The co-word analysis revealed that topics such as policy, regulations, the use of technologies, ergonomics interventions, and architectural criteria or barriers to the daily life of disabled people were frequently discussed in the papers. Although this work shows a substantial and growing increase in research on housing for people with disabilities in Latin America, it also demonstrates the importance of increasing research on other types of impairment, such as visual and cognitive-intellectual disabilities, and including children, caregivers, or even young adults.

Este estudio desarrolla una metodología de aprendizaje colaborativo que permite reutilizar residuos generados en la academia, sin comprometer los objetivos de aprendizaje, y fomentar en los estudiantes una actitud medioambiental responsable. La metodología tiene cinco subsecciones: 1) identificación de cursos que generan residuos físicos en los programas curriculares vigentes; 2) análisis de la factibilidad técnica de la reutilización de los desechos identificados; 3) diseño de la propuesta de intervención; 4) implementación de la metodología; y 5) evaluación de la metodología. Los resultados muestran que el aprendizaje colaborativo permite a los estudiantes de primer año aprender de la experiencia y conocimiento de estudiantes de los últimos años, impulsando una carga cognitiva mayor y más eficaz que el aprendizaje individual. Adicionalmente, se logró reutilizar el 80% de residuos generados en actividades prácticas de docencia. Se concluye que la metodología implementada concientiza a los estudiantes sobre problemáticas medioambientales (residuos) a los que se verán enfrentados cuando ya sean profesionales.

Este artículo presenta un estudio de evaluación económica y clasificación de residuos de construcción y demolición (RCD) en un proyecto real ubicado en la Región Metropolitana, Chile. Chile genera más de cinco millones y medio de toneladas de RC&D al año y afectan de múltiples maneras el medio ambiente. A su vez, los RC&D son un síntoma de problemas de productividad. Una adecuada gestión de los residuos requiere una cuantificación de los mismos. Sin embargo, se observa una carencia en la literatura relacionada a la cuantificación de los volúmenes de residuos y su impacto económico (generación, transporte y disposición final). Se encuentra que el volumen de residuos generados por superficie construida para este caso de estudio es de 0,186 m³/m² de RCD con un costo total de 188.234,44 US$ correspondiente al 1,19% del presupuesto. Así mismo, el costo ponderado de la gestión del RCD se estimó en 75,47 US$/m³.