Methods and New Results for Design Recommendations on Sustainable Solar and Passive Housing in Emerging Countries and in Mediterranean Climate Zones

Emerging countries like Chile in Latin America with their rapidly growing economy and energy use in the housing sector present new challenges for ecological and social sustainability. Sustainable passive and solar housing, including passive cooling and passive solar heating here, is a promising strategy to improve thermal comfort in the Mediterranean climate of Central Chile with its hot and dry summers and cool, but sunny winters. The investigation applied a strategy of using advanced methods of research in order to develop simple and flexible concepts and tools for the design of solar and passive houses, which are extendable to similar climate zones of Latin America and emerging countries in other regions. The evaluation of thermal building behavior is based on extensive parametric studies, both for a reference room and for complete passive houses. The thermal simulations were realized with a test year for Central Chile and hourly climate data, prepared with an own methodology. The systematic design recommendations for simple and advanced solar and passive houses show that with an optimized design and thermal management of houses, it's possible to improve significantly the thermal comfort conditions in economically accessible dwellings of the region. Latest results of the author's participation in international scientific cooperation in Europe and Latin America and the research for his advanced PhD-thesis are presented as a contribution to sustainable building.