Sustentabilidade na habitação massificada. Entre a responsabilidade e o potencial.

Abstract

Having assumed more or less imposing forms, Man's impact on his surroundings is a constant throughout his history. Contemporary society, however, has developed organizational, productive and consumptive patterns, that made unbearable the effort demanded on the environment. The mass broadening of many aspects of life is, in this manner, inseparable from the environmental crisis we face today. When it comes to ecological impact, construction, generally speaking, and housing, in particular, are extremely important factors, for they represent a huge share of the problem. Thus, this study focuses on sustainability as an unavoidable theme in architectural practice, within a context of mass-produced housing. For that effect, we aim to understand which methods are wrong in projectual and constructional approaches, and which can replace them, from technological development to the reconsidering of good principles meanwhile forgotten, assuming a posture that won't focus on one side while neglecting the other. This essay presents, for that purpose, a four-phased structure. First of all, there is the environmental issue's historical and social background, not only in an architectural perspective, but also in relation to other society's aspects. Then, there's an analysis to determine which methods contribute to the problem's development, so that it's possible, in the third phase, to approach the solutions. The final phase consists of an experiment with some of those solutions, applying them on a collective housing project, to understand their repercussions on the projectual act.