Energy poverty in Andalusia. An analysis through decentralised indicators

Interest in energy poverty has increased in recent years and has made it possible to define the lack of energy resources in households and the importance of energy as a right. The research carried out in this work shows the importance it acquires in the current context, where a large part of the population lives confined to their homes due to the global COVID-19 pandemic and has to face higher energy costs, which affects their health and safety. This paper focuses on showing the need to study and take action on energy-poor households in Andalusia, which has been identified as one of the Spanish communities with the highest level of energy poverty. To this end, the main indicators are calculated for Andalusia. The research is transdisciplinary and has been developed by the Aura team of the University of Seville, which participates in the Solar Decathlon university competition. A high degree of energy vulnerability is concluded, with all the main indicators exceeding the national average. Finally, the conclusions section shows the need to modify the current methodology that defines vulnerable households and develop local databases in territories where the factors that affect energy vulnerability are homogeneous and evolving towards decentralised studies.

Confinement, Comfort and Health: Analysis of the Real Influence of Lockdown on University Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the population worldwide into lockdown. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of this measure on the health and comfort of university students and the role that the characteristics of the home may have played. It is essential to differentiate between the terms comfort and health both from the medical and architectural perspectives, as there are differences between the two concepts that are, nonetheless, shared by both disciplines. An online survey was fulfilled by 188 medicine and architecture undergraduate students at the University of Seville, Spain. In terms of health, 89% suffered neuropsychiatric disorders (56% anxiety and 49% depression), 38% gained weight and 59% reported alcohol consumption. In relation to comfort, the majority rated their home positively, comfortable in terms of room temperature and noise at night, and they had a good relationship with cohabitants. However, those who did not have a balcony or terrace would have liked to have open spaces They would have also liked to increase the size of their bedroom, where they spent most of their time and where they studied. A built-up environment gave them a sense of being imprisoned, while those who enjoyed open spaces found a sense of peace. The absence of open spaces in the house, the environment and the impossibility of making the most frequently used spaces more flexible may have had negative impacts on the health and comfort of university students during confinement.

Sustainability of Spanish Tourism Start-Ups in the Face of an Economic Crisis

In this research, a study is carried out on the differences between tourism start-ups in relation to intangibles, economic and financial sustainability, by region and by sector of activity, in order to determine their sustainability both in a situation of economic crisis and growth, In the study carried out in this article, the tourist startups are identified, by branch of activity (hotels, restaurants, transport and travel agencies) with identification of intangibles in their balance sheet. Once identified, a descriptive analysis of the incorporation of intangibles, economic sustainability and financial sustainability, by branch of activity and community, is developed. This analysis is completed with an analysis of variance to determine if there is a relationship between intangible and branches of tourism and region;economic sustainability and branches of tourism and region;financial sustainability and branches of tourism and region. The conclusions of the work show that parameters such as investment in intangibles, economic sustainability and financial sustainability are key variables in crisis situations such as the current one.

Environmental Comfort as a Sustainable Strategy for Housing Integration: The AURA 1.0 Prototype for Social Housing

The AURA 1.0 prototype is a sustainable social housing proposal, designed by the University of Seville and built for the first Latin American edition of the prestigious Solar Decathlon competition. Different conditioning strategies were integrated into this prototype, optimized for a tropical climate, and focused on contributing positively to the health of the most humble people in society. In this moment, in which a large part of the world population is confined to their homes due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have the opportunity (and the obligation) to reconsider the relationship between architecture and medicine or in other words, between the daily human habitat and health. For this reason, this analysis of aspects derived from the interior conditioning of the homes is carried out. The main objective of the Aura proposal is to be able to extract data through a housing monitoring system, which allows us to transfer some design strategies to the society to which is a case study, in order to promote environmental comfort and, therefore, people’s health. The AURA 1.0 prototype develops flexible and adaptable living spaces, with a high environmental quality, in order to maintain the variables of temperature, relative humidity and natural lighting within a range of comfort required by the rules of the event. To achieve this end, the prototype develops an architectural proposal that combines passive and active conditioning strategies, using construction qualities and typical costs of social housing. These strategies allowed the project to achieve the first prize in the Comfort Conditions test. So, this paper presents an appropriate and tested solution that can satisfy comfortability and health of residents who live in social housing while maintaining low energy consumption.

Health and Habitability in the Solar Decathlon University Competitions: Statistical Quantification and Real Influence on Comfort Conditions.

Medicine and architecture are disciplines with the main objectives of satisfying the fundamental needs of human beings: health, comfort, well-being, safety, and ensuring an acceptable quality of life in a sustainable habitat. In both areas of knowledge, the advances and the most innovative proposals in the fields of research and teaching are focused on transversal knowledge and the use of learning methods through problem solving (learning by doing). The student competitions called "Solar Decathlon" are focused on the development of these concepts, in which prototypes of sustainable and, as far as possible, healthy social housing are tested. In these university competitions, the design of energy-efficient and comfortable living environments that contribute to the health of the occupants are encouraged; however, the methodology for evaluating the "comfort conditions" stipulated in the competition rules considers only parameters that can be monitored by sensors. For this article, the prototypes presented by the "Solar Decathlon Team of the University of Seville" to the editions of said competition held in Latin America and Europe (in 2015 and 2019, respectively) are being studied. The present research starts from the fact that the unique consideration of measurable indices (such as temperature, humidity, etc.), is clearly insufficient when it comes to evaluating the real conditions of habitability and comfort that a domestic architectural space presents. For this reason, a theoretical-practical analysis is carried out by means of surveys, with the final objective of determining a methodology for evaluating comfort-complementary to that of the competition-which assesses other relevant issues and which, in short, takes into account the repercussion on people's health. From our analysis, we conclude that at least these two methodologies should be used to evaluate comfort because they are individually considered incomplete in terms of the data provided by each one of them. The survey-based methodology provides complementary information on comfort and health that could be taken into account in future editions of Solar Decathlon.