Total heavy prefabrcation: case study : Santo António dos Cavaleiros and Quinta do Morgado

Abstract

The concept of industrialised construction was realised in the Industrial Revolution. Due to the general tendency towards industrialisation, this method of con struction increased swiftly with the introduction of an organised and mechanical work force, which took place from the beginning of the 18th century. However, the industrialised construction only became economical viable with the great shortage of buildings resulting from the massive destruction of cities by bombing, the great demographic explosion and the industrial concentration in cities after the Second World War and were the driving force behind the development of industrialised construction and prefabrication in particular. The first experience in Portugal, with this technology was made with the creation of the building construction company ICESA - Indústrias de Construção e Empreendimentos SARL, and the implementation of the French total heavy prefabrication process, named FIORIO, with a production of about 10.000 dwellings. In buildings that were then about 30 years old, in both case studies Santo António dos Cavaleiros (SAC) e Quinta do Morgado (QM), we found anomalies related to design, manufacture, assembly, use and lack of maintenance, a very common situation in Portugal. From the two evaluated solutions for the resolution of this type of anomalies, the first one was chosen, due to its advantages - application of the ETICS system, with the thermal insulation placed on the outside of the external walls of the buildings. However, in a new eventual rehabilitation of the exterior walls of these buildings we would consider the switch of the expanded polyurethane thermal insulation, a material with a lot of fossil fuel incorporated, for renewable materials such as cork, hemp, rock wool or coconut fibre.