[HOW DO YOU LIVE?]

[HOW DO YOU LIVE?] INTERACTIVE SYSTEM OF POST-OCCUPANCY EVALUATION OF THE QUALITY OF INHABITING IN DIGITAL MEANS
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[Institutes] Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism and Design (FAUeD) and Faculty of Computer Science (FACOM) – Federal University of Uberlândia
[Period] 2014 – 2016 (23 months)
[Financing] CNPq (edital MCTI – nº 22/2014)
[Resume] “Inhabiting” is a fundamental act of human existence and, therefore, the theme of housing has been consistently investigated under different approaches and points of view. In this context, the importance of the house, shelter of “inhabiting”, is justified since it allows the human being to obtain a wide range of attributes, subjective and objective, namely: physical and psychological safety; privacy; appropriation; comfort; developing private and collective activities, as well as domestic, leisure and productive ones; and establishing community relationships. After all, while the spaces of housing are private, they also have a collective dimension – expressed by the relationship between residents among themselves and among other members of the surroundings. Thus, the analysis of “inhabiting” should also always be related to the investigation of the physical territory and of the environment in which the house sits.

Therefore, asking “HOW DO YOU LIVE?”, in this research, seeks to grasp the multiple meanings of “inhabiting” in all its scales: physical (the house itself), behavioral (related to the concept of home – the house and its users) and environmental (meaning housing – the house set in an urban context). Considering the importance of “inhabiting” for humans, it is also justified the need to know how the inhabitants of our cities are being housed. In other word, it is important to evaluate the quality of housing, both in its objective and subjective dimensions. Therefore, this research project has the main objective to develop an interactive system of post-occupancy evaluation in digital media, identifying the quality of housing produced and whose viability, tested in case studies in the city of Uberlândia (MG), would support its future replication nationwide. Thus, this research considers the hypothesis that design quality tends to improve through the assembly and observation of databases, based on post-occupancy evaluation methods, by architects and by public and private real estate agents. This work also intends to continue other studies developed within the group [MORA] research in housing, which focus on methodologies of post-occupancy evaluation and digital interfaces, enlarging the discussion of new methodological possibilities in the field, through: interdisciplinary, adoption of different methods of data collection and using of nontraditional approaches.

Various regular ways of “inhabiting” has often been chosen by city residents (apartments or houses, located in condominiums or subdivisions), amidst a large number of irregular configurations of housing (such as favelas and tenement houses). This research focuses on the first group, analyzing the regular urban production, which has proliferated homogeneously in almost all Brazilian cities. Moreover, despite the effort to characterize and investigate the quality of housing, it is observed that many previous studies on this topic are limited, since they commonly focus on only certain aspects that characterize the quality of housing: social and behavioral, or economic and political, or environmental and pathological, or anthropometric aspects of design. In this way, it becomes necessary to check how the housing production meets the different spheres involving “inhabiting”: technical specifications of materials and construction systems; lifestyles of different family types, with distinct social and cultural backgrounds; comfort conditions to users and impacts on the environment.

Methodologically, this work is divided into: (i) literature research (internet and libraries) on Types, Aspects and Evaluation of Inhabiting in order to establish the current state of the art of the theme proposed; (ii) categorization and definition of the main attributes of the evaluation; (iii) identification of the limits and objetcts of the evaluation system, considering literature review and the attributes, characterizing and defining its parts, tools, and goals; (iv) development of the interactive system of POE in digital media using functional prototypes (PC computers); (v) application of pre-testing of the system into functional prototypes with the population of Uberlândia; (vi) development of the interactive system of POE in digital media (internet, tablets and smartphones); (vii) application of definitive tests of the interactive system of POE in digital media in different types of housing in Uberlândia (MG), in order to verify the possibility of its future replication nationwide; and (viii) availability of the interactive system of POE in digital media for the community.

Finally, in addition to the advantages already mentioned above, the relevance of this system lies in the fact that it could provide a digital channel of communication about “inhabiting”, via the Internet, tablets and smartphones, exploring interactive features and developing more friendly and intuitive digital interfaces. On one hand, the system could promote the dialogue among the inhabitants and housing agents (public and private), fostering continuous improvement in the production of housing in different scales and spheres. Through information collected by the system (databases on inhabiting), it also intends to provide statistical and scientific data which could amplify the quality of housing design, as well as guide the development of policies, guidelines and legislation. On the other hand, the system could act as a medium of information and knowledge to its own users, providing access to data about aspects of “inhabiting” and about their impacts on the environment in which they live.

[Staff]
Geral Coordinator: Prof.ª Dr.ª Simone Barbosa Villa. PPGAU/FAUeD/UFU
Prof.º Dr.º Fernando Garrefa. PPGAU/FAUeD/UFU
Prof.ª Dr.ª Maria Adriana Vidigal de Lima. FACOM/UFU
Prof.ª Dr.ª Viviane dos Guimarães Alvim Nunes. FAUeD/UFU
Prof.ª Ms. Rita de Cássia Pereira Saramago. FAUeD/UFU
Prof.ª Dr.ª. Sabrina Maia Lemos. FAUeD/UFU
Prof.ª Rafaela Nunes Mendonça – FAUeD/UFU
[Students]
Ana Paula Seabra Marega Zago – Master Student PPGAU-FAUeD
Lorena Spirandeli Marques FAUeD-UFU – Architecture and Urbanism Undergraduate
Gabriela Barros Portilho – FAUeD-UFU – Architecture and Urbanism Undergraduate
Pedro Henrique Viana Silva – FAUeD-UFU – Architecture and Urbanism Undergraduate
Ana Carolina Silva -FAUeD-UFU – Architecture and Urbanism Undergraduate
Thais Castro Alves de Àvila – FAUeD-UFU – Architecture and Urbanism Undergraduate
Isabella Gomes de Marco – FAUeD-UFU – Design Undergraduate
Yasmin Carolini Thomeo – FAUeD-UFU – Design Undergraduate
Paloma Ribeiro de Souza – FAUeD-UFU – Design Undergraduate
Tatiane Fernanda de Souza Silva – Undergraduate FACOM/ UFU
Igor Batista Fernandes – Undergraduate FACOM/ UFU