A methodology for housing design

In an organizational basis, an assessment of the low-initial cost of a house-sketch's on other attributes at the programming phase of the design is developed. Acknowledging that housing consists of shelter, access, and tenure, evidences of the relationships of these three dimensions are presented.

The management is done in reference to the lack of consideration of the user's real needs, lack of innovation of construction industry concerning to the housing sector, lack of housing affordability, lack of measurement of the built environment performance, and lack of quality in housing offerings to the low-income people.

In the design phase, after conceiving a house, the main designer asks the complementary designers to provide the 10 combinations, such as, construction materials, systems, and methods at the lowest-initial cost; at the same time, it is also asked to assess the influence of the low-initial cost in the design options to the same sketch.

Systems approach concepts are applied to define the house attributes to be measured. A morphological approach helps to constitute the house system by the break down of its parts into subsystems such as the roof, the wall, and foundations. The idea of building material compatibility and partial cost analysis narrow the options by eliminating the unfeasible and/or the costlier.

Data from the user and technician, and the weights and factors of this design methodology must be constantly gathered and updated. The former consist of evaluation from the built environment, and the latter of operational conditions of this methodology.

The results indicate that the application of this design methodology yields satisfactory estimation of the lowest-initial cost option, and that its influence on other house's attributes that constitutes one of the major sources of scepticism in the global house performance prediction, can be assessed with a reasonable accuracy.