Social housing building stock renewal needs : a case study

Abstract

Providing adequate shelter to low income families was a major focus of public investment in the last quarter of the twentieth century in Portugal. However, most social dwellings have not been built in compliance with essential sustainability principies, therefore compromising their present value. This has been confirmed with a recent field survey conducted by the authors to a set of social dwellings in Aveiro district, in the centre of the country. According to the survey, both technical and administrative reasons have contributed to the above scenario. On the technical side, inappropriate materiais and construction processes have been detected: low durability solutions have contributed to early deterioration of external building façades; deficient installations anticipated problems in water supply and drainage, etc. Some pathologies root in design as deficient or inexistent thermal and acoustic insulation and lack of ventilation induce early problems in the building performance shortly after construction. On the administrative side, restricted budgets and strictly control of construction spaces also played a role. The aim of this paper is to present the results of the most relevant problems detected in a sample of rental social dwellings. This will be used in the scope of a research project being carried which aims at prioritizing refurbishment interventions in the Portuguese social housing stock.