37º IAHS World Congress on Housing: - Universidad de Cantabria

XXXVII <strong>IAHS</strong><strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> on HousingOctober 26 – 29, 2010, Santander, SpainCODE: 818A CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMETHOD FOR ASSESSING THE QUALITY OF PROJECTSFOR RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGSJoão Pedro Patrício Teixeira Júlio, Anabela Gonçalves Correia de Paiva, Caroline ElisabethDominguezDepartment of EngineeringSchool of Science and TechnologyUniversity of the Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugale-mail: jpjulio@gmail.com; apaiva@utad.pt; carold@utad.ptKey words: quality, residential buildings, designAbstractThe work presented in this paper is inserted in the activities of the Trás-os-Montes e AltoDouro Construction Observatory (OC-TMAD) in Portugal and has the objective of improvingthe quality of residential buildings through the development of a method which evaluates thequality of the design of this type of buildings.A comparative analysis of a group of assessment methods for residential buildings projectsoften used in Japan, United States of America, Hong Kong and of existing proposalsdeveloped in Portugal will be presented. This analysis allows to highlight the parameters mostfrequently used to evaluate the quality of residential construction projects and constructionsthemselves.The critical opinion of experts is then added to the analysis leading to a hierarchical set ofgreat categories, areas of evaluation and criteria to be taken into account in the method to bedeveloped by the OC-TMAD in the future.The hierarchy of aspects, distributed in forty areas of evaluation, is set to cover variousaspects of building/housing, related to location, indoor environment, materials, energy, wateruse, constructive and economic aspects.Although the aspects relating to sustainable construction cover a large part of the futureevaluation method, the constructive ones are still important targets, construction still practicedin Portugal does not dismiss its inclusion.37º <strong>IAHS</strong> <strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> On Housing Science 283