Evaluation of Passive Strategies for Achieving Hygrothermal Comfort in Social Housing Buildings in the Dominican Republic

Abstract

In a building, the thermal satisfaction an individual may experience generally influences their health, well-being, productivity, and energy consumption. The concept of thermal comfort and its importance in buildings has been known for some time. However, in the Dominican Republic, discussing thermal comfort in social housing is a challenge since there have not been many studies applied to this context, especially to social housing. For this reason, this research analyzed the thermal behavior of a typical social housing building through energy simulation, aiming to highlight the importance of passive strategies to improve comfort in a warm and humid climate without using air conditioning. The simulation was conducted using OpenStudio v3.9, which utilizes the EnergyPlus v9.4 calculation engine. Three case studies were analyzed, implementing passive measures and seeking to achieve temperatures within the comfort ranges of the housing prototype. The results show that combining different passive strategies for warm-humid climates significantly reduces temperature, achieving reductions of up to 2.8 °C in the colder period and up to 3.2 °C in the warmer period. © 2025 by the authors.