Delivering Sustainable Low-Income Housing in Uganda, Challenges and Opportunities

While the developed world is adapting to the consequences of climate changes, global warming will negatively affect the quality of life and economic growth in developing countries. The low-income populations from low and medium Human Development Index (HDI) countries would suffer even more from climate changes because of their vulnerable living conditions and the lack of appropriate and adequate infrastructure. Particular attention should therefore be paid to the low-income housing conditions not only to address the environmental concerns but also to improve the living standards and health and wellbeing of low-income populations. This paper reviews the Ugandan housing conditions in order to identify the opportunities and challenges for delivering sustainable energy efficient low-income housing in Uganda. Urbanisation; slums; housing costs, types and sizes; construction methods and materials and renewable energy sources are some of the areas which have been reviewed and discussed in detail. The findings reveal some critical areas such as informal settlement, overcrowding and access to housing facilities as well as embodied energy of construction methods and materials which require immediate attention

Environmental impacts and embodied energy of construction methods and materials in low-income tropical housing

This paper evaluates the current conditions of Ugandan low-income tropical housing with a focus on construction methods and materials in order to identify the key areas for improvement. Literature review, site visits and photographic surveys are carried out to collect relevant information on prevailing construction methods/materials and on their environmental impacts in rural areas. Low quality, high waste, and energy intensive production methods, as well as excessive soil extraction and deforestation, are identified as the main environmental damage of the current construction methods and materials. The embodied energy is highlighted as the key area which should be addressed to reduce the CO$_2$ emissions of low-income tropical housing. The results indicate that the embodied energy of fired bricks in Uganda is up to 5.7 times more than general clay bricks. Concrete walling is identified as a much more environmentally friendly construction method compared to brick walling in East African countries. Improving fuel efficiency and moulding systems, increasing access to renewable energy sources, raising public awareness, educating local manufacturers and artisans, and gradual long-term introduction of innovative construction methods and materials which are adapted to local needs and conditions are some of the recommended actions to improve the current conditions.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from MDPI via http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su706786

Improving Thermal Comfort of Low-Income Housing in Thailand through Passive Design Strategies

In Thailand, the delivery of adequate low-income housing has historically been overshadowed by politics with cost and quantity being prioritised over quality, comfort and resilience. In a country that experiences hot and humid temperatures throughout the year, buildings need to be adaptable to the climate to improve the thermal comfort of inhabitants. This research is focused on identifying areas for improving the thermal performance of these housing designs. Firstly, dynamic thermal simulations were run on a baseline model using the adaptive thermal comfort model CIBSE TM52 for assessment. The three criteria defined in CIBSE TM52 were used to assess the frequency and severity of overheating in the buildings. The internal temperature of the apartments was shown to exceed the thermal comfort threshold for these criteria throughout the year. The internal operating daily temperatures of the apartment remain high, ranging from a maximum of 38.5 °C to a minimum of 27.3 °C. Based on these findings, five criteria were selected to be analysed for sensitivity to obtain the key parameters that influence the thermal performance and to suggest possible areas for improvement. The computer software package Integrated Environmental Solutions—Virtual Environment (IES-VE) was used to perform building energy simulations. Once the baseline conditions were identified, the software packages SimLab2.2 and RStudio were used to carry out the sensitivity analysis. These results indicated that roof material and the presence of a balcony have the greatest influence on the system. Incorporating insulation into the roof reduced the mean number of days of overheating by 21.43%. Removing the balcony increased the number of days of overheating by 19.94% due to significant reductions in internal ventilation

Improving Thermal Comfort in Low-income Tropical Housing: The Case of Uganda

The average temperature in East African countries is estimated to rise by 3-4 °C during the next 70 years due the global warming. Uganda is one of the East African countries which will be greatly affected by the global warming. Due to their vulnerable living conditions, low-income people will be hit the worst by the consequences of climate changes. Around 38% of Uganda’s population live below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day and more than 60% of the country’s urban population live in slums. On the other hand, due to various social and practical reasons, sustainable locally available construction methods and materials, such as adobe and thatched roofs are being gradually replaced with environmentally harmful materials such as concrete and iron sheet roofs. This situation in addition to imminent thermal discomfort caused by the global warming as well as defective design and inappropriate construction methods may considerably affect the health and wellbeing of low-income people the majority of whom live in substandard overcrowded homes. This paper intends to evaluate the effects of different construction methods and materials on the risk of thermal discomfort in low-income houses in Uganda. Dynamic thermal simulations are conducted in EnergyPlus and adaptive model Category II, defined in BS EN 15251, is used for the thermal comfort evaluations. The results reveal that roof construction methods/materials are the key factor in reducing or increasing the risk of thermal discomfort in naturally ventilated buildings in tropical climates. Compared to iron sheet roof, thatched roof provided up to 15 times better conditions by reducing the number of hours during which internal operative temperature exceeded the “limiting maximum acceptable temperature”. Hollow concrete block walls with iron sheet roof was found to be the worst construction method which dramatically failed all three thermal comfort criteria defined by CIBSE TM52

Energy and low-income tropical housing in Tanzania

Low-income housing in Tanzania is traditionally made from mud and thatch. With thatch having a typical life span of 2-7 years and mangrove poles 5-15 years, low durability is identified as the key issue with the traditional low-income house design. This paper studies the financial and social implications, embodied energy (EE) and human energy (HE) of a variety of materials in a bid to identify both the positive and negative impacts of each material substitution on the overall design, the environment and the local community. Using primary data collected from houses in the Mbweni district of Dar es Salaam and The Inventory of Carbon and Energy to calculate EE, a qualitative and quantitative assessment of each material is made. 47% of residents questioned in Tanzania, identified low durability to be the key issue with their mud house, with design changes which address this issue therefore affecting the largest share of the population. Stabilised bricks are identified as the key material substitution that should be adopted by local people, they perform well in terms of improved durability, financial and environmental considerations, and have the potential to be socially beneficial as well. This research identifies the social considerations to be key to understanding how local people will respond to the suggested material substitutions and whether they are likely to be adopted in the future. Whilst the environmental considerations are important, this is not a concept local people can relate to and does not affect their day-to-day lives as much as financial and social implications. It is extremely difficult and ethically questionable, especially in communities with people living close to poverty, to expect someone to adopt a design which requires more effort/money on their part, just because it is better for the environment

Evaluating the thermal performance of low-income housing in Thailand

This research investigates potential areas for improving the thermal performance of low income, government-provided housing designs in Bangkok, Thailand. In a country that experiences hot and humid temperatures throughout the year, buildings need to be adaptable to the climate in order to improve the thermal comfort of inhabitants. The current housing typologies include a prevalence of high density, low-rise condominiums with a large brick and concrete composition. As an initial step, the performance of the building was determined according to adaptive comfort standards using IES (VE) software. The results from the baseline model were analysed according to the adaptive comfort CIBSE TM52 guidelines. The zones under consideration within the case study housing unit were observed to exceed the acceptable limits of what is deemed appropriate for naturally ventilated buildings. The critical zone of concern is the living room with this zone exceeding the upper limit for overheating by a maximum of 11 hours annually. The main sources of the low thermal performance were identified as resulting from: thermal storage effects, the lack of sufficient natural ventilation through the living zones and excessive heat gains through the roof. The internal operating temperatures of the apartment remain high throughout the day and night, ranging from a maximum of 38.5° to a minimum of 27.3°

Transition in housing design and thermal comfort in rural Tanzania

This study evaluates the performance of three low-income passive housing designs at providing thermal comfort for their inhabitants in temperate tropical rural Tanzania. Severe climatic conditions in these upland regions include large daily oscillations in air temperature (14°C-36°C) and high levels of solar radiation, causing overheating which affects inhabitant health and wellbeing. Inadequate shelter in these difficult climatic conditions is a widespread problem with 71% of Tanzanians living in rural areas, of which 28% of are below the national poverty line. Over the last 10 years an increasing number of houses are using modern building materials (brick or concrete walls and iron roof) rather than traditional vernacular design (mud-pole walls and thatch roof). Three designs were chosen to describe this transition. The performances of the three houses were simulated across a study year using IES and then compared against five chosen criteria to assess thermal comfort. Detailed analyses of critical times of day and specific areas of the building envelope were used to identify critical areas of design. The traditional house overheated significantly less often with smaller diurnal indoor temperature swings than the modern houses (due to its higher roof insulation and wall thermal mass). It also experienced uncomfortably low temperatures least often but maintained higher temperatures for longer during hot evenings. The modern houses outperformed the traditional house in ventilation gains with constant heat rejection throughout the day and night. The traditional house’s open structure resulted in high daytime ventilation gains and night-time heat rejection. Consideration of the position and internal gains of each room was found to be an important design factor. Across the study year the traditional design provided greater thermal comfort. However, as durability and social pressures are important factors in the choice of building materials, the design of modern materials that can mimic and improve on traditional material performance is critical to improving the health of inhabitants

Representative Moakley with Nelson Cruickshank, President of the National Council of our Senior Citizens, audio recording and transcript, circa 1974

This recording includes two interviews with Nelson Cruickshank, the President of the National Council of Senior Citizens about issues facing older Americans. In the first segment Representative Moakley and Mr. Cruikshank discuss senior citizen healthcare funding and the Social Security Act. The second segment concerns senior citizen housing under the Federal Housing program. Both segments aired on WCOP as episodes of a radio show featuring Congressman Moakley discussing issues of national importance.https://dc.suffolk.edu/moakley-av/1016/thumbnail.jp

Rigidity of Linearly Constrained Frameworks

We consider the problem of characterising the generic rigidity of bar-joint frameworks in R d in which each vertex is constrained to lie in a given affine subspace. The special case when d = 2 was previously solved by I. Streinu and L. Theran in 2010. We will extend their characterisation to the case when d ≥ 3 and each vertex is constrained to lie in an affine subspace of dimension t, when t = 1, 2 and also when t ≥ 3 and d ≥ t(t−1). We then point out that results on body-bar frameworks obtained by N. Katoh and S. Tanigawa in 2013 can be used to characterise when a graph has a rigid realisation as a d-dimensional body-bar framework with a given set of linear constraints