Building an accurate model house to demonstrate building science and weatherization techniques in informal settlements in Patagonia, Argentina.
MIT D-Lab class
Applications of Energy in Global Development
Community partners
- Weatherizers Without Borders
- Fovisee Vivienda Justa - Worked with Nicolas Maggio
Country
Argentina
Student team
MIT students unless otherwise noted.
- Sophia Benjamin (2026)
- Jack Horgen (2026)
- Maya Lu-Heda (Wellesley, 2025)
- Daanyaal Sajed (Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, 2026)
- Adria Peterkin (Nuclear Science and Engineering, PhD)
Problem framing
Building scientists do not have accurate house models of informal Bariloche settlements. Thus they cannot accurately use models to demonstrate building science and weatherization in these settlements.
Cultural and/or market context
We are working with community members in low-income informal settlements in Bariloche, Argentina. Bariloche is a very unequal city, with ski resorts that bring in a lot of money in the north and low-income settlements in the mountainous areas in the south. The climate is very cold, and those in the low-income settlements struggle to heat their homes adequately in the winter. In particular, 78% of households live under energy poverty. Thus they heat their homes largely through methods like burning wood, which leads to air quality issues.
One particular problem is that more than 70% of homes do not have complete thermal insulation, meaning that people must expend a lot of energy heating their homes. A way of addressing these issues and lowering costs, air quality problems and environmental impacts is to weatherize and insulate houses so that they lose less heat. In order to make this happen, community members must understand and be excited about weatherization. To facilitate this, we want to demonstrate weatherization in a house model representative of their homes.
Solution including technical details
Our solution includes a realistic house model, accurate for homes in Bariloche. We measured heat loss through the tin roof and generated plots with and without fiberglass insulation.
Hand-off to partner, next steps
We’re looking forward to presenting our findings to Nicholas and his team in Bariloche, along with the government representatives at the United States Embassy in Buenos Aires. We plan on writing a descriptive guide as well to pass off our work to the next team of D-Lab students.
Contact
Ahmad Zakka, Instructor
Sophia Benjamin, student team member
Jack Horgen, student team member
Maya Lu-Heda, student team member
Daanyaal Sajed, student team member
Adria Peterkin, student team member
