The Thermal Performance of Iconic Office Buildings in Modernist Brazilian Architecture in Sao Paulo, produced between 1930 and 1964: Case Study of the former headquarters of the South American Bank and the Office Towers of Conjunto Nacional.

• Grant number: 17/25692-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2018
• End date: June 30, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Architecture and Urbanism Technology
• Principal Investigator: Joana Carla Soares Gonçalves
• Grantee: Beatriz Nascimento e Souza
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research is focused on the relationship between architectural aspects, including: architectural design solutions of shape, orientation, openings, shadind and constructive components, and the thermal performance of iconic office buildings in the modernist brazilian architecture, produced in the city of Sao Paulo, between the decades of 1930 and 1960, which was known by the emphasis on principals princípios of climatic contextualization of architecture for the comfort of the occupants. Therefore, the study cases are: South American Bank Building (Current Itau Bank Building, 1966), in Paulista Avenue, project by Rino Levi; and the Office Towers of Conjunto Nacional (1963), also in the same avenue, projected by the architect Daniel Libeskind. The aim is to verify quantitatively the thermal performance of architectural references of modernist comercial architecture in Sao Paulo, identifying the role played by the several aspects of the architectural project mencioned above in the building thermal response. The method is simulactonal deductive, using computational thermodynamicssimulation tools, with which will be made performance parametric simulations. The obtained results for both study cases will be analyzed in a comparative way, besides beeing confronted with the thermal comfort criteria form the adaptive model from the North-American Association ASHRAE (2013) and the English Association CIBSE TM-52 (2013). As a result of these evaluations, it will be formulated project recommendations, which come to contribute for a critic vision that proposes the resumption of the environmental approach in contemporary comercial architecture in the city of Sao Paulo and in other cities with similar climate. Lastly, it is worth highlighting that this project continues the work developed by the research entitled "The Thermal and Luminous Performance of Iconic Buildings of Brazilian Modernist Architecture, in Sao Paulo, produced between 1930 and 1964", which had support from FAPESP (duration 2014-2016, process n. 2014/15961-9), that emphasized on empirical procedures instead of analitical simulation. This proposal was formulated concurrently with another scientific initiation entitled "The Thermal Performance of Iconic Residencial Buildings in Modernist Brazilian Architecture in Sao Paulo, produced between 1930 and 1964: The cases of the Builindgs Louveira and Albatroz", submitted to FAPESP to be developed in parallel, taking into account the completeness of the two surveys.