Strategies for energetic and environmental sustainability in cities with dry climates. Comparative assessment for updating the Urban and Building Code for the City of Mendoza, Argentina
The article presents the results of an ongoing study, aimed at comparatively assessing two alternative normative proposals for updating the Urban and Building Code, in high density urban zones in the city of Mendoza, in central-western Argentina. The proposed reforms were mainly aimed at densifying and upgrading decayed urban tissues, providing room to revert the city’s ongoing peripheral sprawl on productive lands and the surrounding desert ecosystem. The new Municipal Project (MP) was mainly focused on morphological variables, again disregarding any significant attempt to approach sustainability on environmental and energy aspects. An Alternative Project (AP), was developed by the R+D unit, in coincidence with the densification targets of the MP but, trying to rid its proposal of the various foreseeable negative environmental impacts of the former. The study was mainly focused on one key issue: solar access to potential collecting surfaces of the built environment assessed using a quantitative method. Three temporal scenarios of the city’s future evolution process, are being considered, starting from the reference situation of existing preservable high density built-up areas and simulating their possible outcomes on mid (25 years) and long (50 years) terms, as results of the massive implementation of either normative on the longer term. The results obtained so far, indicate that the AP presents higher mean values of predicted solar potential, expressed by the chosen indicator, the Volumetric Insolation Factor (VIF) for both time terms: MP30: 106, MP60: 73 and AP30: 141, AP60: 112 Mj./m3 , respectively.
Keywords:
Sustainable urban development, urban morphology, solar potential.
Arboit, M. E., & de Rosa, C. (2013). Strategies for energetic and environmental sustainability in cities with dry climates. Comparative assessment for updating the Urban and Building Code for the City of Mendoza, Argentina. Revista De Urbanismo, 15(28), Pág. 94–113. https://doi.org/10.5354/ru.v15i28.21561
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