INNOVATIONS IN QUALITY EVALUATION METHOD APPLIED TO MULTIFAMILY SOCIAL HOUSING

Abstract

This article discusses established housing quality strategies and proposes a new method for evaluating the quality of multifamily housing projects. It proposes 47 quality indicators, adapted from Ferreira (2012), Montaner, Muxí, and Falagan (2011), Benetti, Pecly, and Andreoli (2017), and Brasil (2018). The method contemplates three thematic axes at different scales, “the building in the city scale”, “characterization of the complex” and “housing units”, including questions of innovation issues and urgent social demands for housing in the 21st century. The method was applied in the evaluation of a project launched in 2019, in the city of Vila Velha, Metropolitan Region of Grande Vitória, ES. The results point to the fulfillment of only 25% of the enumerated qualitative attributes, with a significant impact on urban insertion, low vitality, unfavorable mobility and accessibility, dependence on the private car, absence of work opportunities, lack of contextualization with the place, sustainability as a marketing tool, absence of flexibility strategies, low environmental performance, and inability to support plural family arrangements and absorb changes in use throughout the life cycle. It comprises an opportunity for reflection on the cultural change required by human needs of the contemporary habitat.