Dominican Republic Research Paper

1.1 Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic is located in the sunny Caribbean and part of the northern and western hemisphere. With a total land area of 48,730 km2, Dominican Republic resides on the island of Hispaniola, bordered by Haiti to the West, Atlantic Ocean to the north and East, and the Caribbean Sea to the South.

Michael Grosberg, a writer of the lonelyplanet, describes D. R, as a country blessed with one of the Caribbean’s most diverse landscapes, stunning mountain scenery, desert scrublands, romantic colonial architecture, the friendliest people and plenty of stunning beaches. These natural, historical and social characteristics make tourism rank as the highest revenue earner in its economy, producing earnings of US$4.3 billions

As a developing country D.R. is constantly faced with not only economical issues, but also social and environmental. The natural resources, which are the primary source of income via tourism, are being threatened by the way Dominicans are naively and unsustainably designing, building, and living. Over utilizing the already non-efficient power lines, mining the beaches to bring sand in virgin land, contaminating with black water the only resources of fresh water, proudly breaking the established laws, and poorly building over 50% of the entire housing system in the island are some of the repercussions of this uneducated society.

D.R. is classified as one of the ten most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change. It is currently being affected by: sea level rise, warmer weather, and flooding. These have lad to being confronted with natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and landslides that are likely to become more frequent and severely impact the fragile economy.

1.2

The inefficient supply of electricity and ineffective governance of the sector suppresses overall economic growth in the Dominican Republic . It only makes sense that the architect’s designs focus on delivering less energy-dependent buildings.

Although Passive House demands very energy efficient buildings and appears to be one evident architectural solution to the D.R. environmental improvements plan, it has not been studied in this environment yet and represents a high risk. In most locations, there are no qualified workers available to install or maintain them, making it an economic and liability issue.

Vernacular architecture in the Dominican Republic has proven to be energy efficient and provide high thermal comfort levels, but opposite to Passive House it relies on a completely open envelope that allows the air to quickly get in and out of the spaces. Unlike Passive House, Dominican vernacular architecture has no scientific proof rather than user experience, therefore is not scientifically rigorous to hold one over the other.

A thorough analysis is needed, comparing both methods to find which strategies are most effective in this