A Simple Method for Building Orientation Definition of Standardized Preschool Design in Brazilian Climatic Zones

Brazilian Government's Proinfância Program developed Standardized Preschool Designs (SPDs) to ensure children's access to preschool while reducing design costs and shortening bidding and construction processes. Local administrations are expected to define the SPD’s building orientation in an available site, Proinfância provides no information regarding the SPDs' building orientation definition.

This study proposes a simple method to help local administrations to define an adequate building orientation of SPDs in the eight Brazilian climatic zones aiming for thermal performance and thermal comfort. This method combines the ABNT NBR 15.575:2013 simulation method for thermal performance assessment and the ASHRAE Standard 55-2017 Adaptive Model for thermal comfort assessment. The SPD Type 2 was chosen for the method validation, and a decision-support framework was developed to solve divergences among conflicting results.

Thermal performance and thermal comfort assessments demonstrated that Type 2 is more suitable for warmer CZs. In some CZs, the thermal comfort results showed significant variations with the building orientation shift. The proposed method proved to be adequate to indicate building orientation to Proinfância Program’ Type 2.

In addition, this study allowed the elaboration of a building orientation’s recommendations’ list for each Brazilian climatic zone. Municipal administrations might use the results to guarantee thermally qualified indoor spaces based in cientific evidences. The data collected contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the field of thermal comfort regarding naturally conditioned preschool buildings.