Construções agroecológicas e moradia popular: Projeto Técnico com alternativas à melhoria habitacional

Abstract

The purpose of this technical project was to share agroecological construction techniques to improve the quality of popular housing in Cinturão Verde neighborhood, municipality of Três Corações, MG. To do so, we surveyed the characteristics of occupations, land use, legislation, housing deficit and local construction typologies. We also sought to understand how residents perceive their homes, yards, and the agroecological construction techniques in their reality. In addition, we planned, executed and evaluated some technical evaluation actions in social architecture and urbanism as a university extension project. These activities included the training of residents by sharing agroecological construction techniques to restore two houses in the neighborhood, using mainly a wattle and daub technique. The methodological procedures adopted included the diagnosis, planning, execution and evaluation of activities, collection of data from documentary research, direct observation, group interviews and informal and semi-structured interviews. These tools were added to the professional assistance and participatory methodologies. The results showed that the neighborhood has especially a qualitative housing deficit, and that Cinturão Verde and the municipality of Três Corações lack actions to address social housing. According to the perception of the participants, the shared techniques are easy to learn, pleasant to perform and ecological. Besides that, the low cost, the work of friends and the residents themselves, and the possibility to reuse material both from urban and civil construction waste and from nature makes it possible for families in the neighborhood to have houses with better quality and more environmental comfort. Most respondents believe that these constructive solutions can also serve other neighborhoods and contexts, especially in peri-urban areas, where natural material is abundant. These agroecological techniques could be shared with more than 20 families in the municipality. This work contributes to the technical assistance to social housing, expanding possibilities of action and encouraging the study, research, use of agroecological construction techniques, and construction with raw earth and unconventional materials.