Ventilation Strategies for Informal Settlements in the Subtropical City of São Paulo, Brazil: Aiming for thermal resilience and healthy environments for vulnerable communities

This paper examines how the building fabric and dense layout of São Paulo's informal settlements (favelas) affect heat and ventilation, drawing on field measurements in occupied dwellings in the São Remo favela, plus analytical calculations and dynamic thermal simulations. The authors aim to identify low-cost, building-scale ventilation interventions that improve thermal comfort and indoor air quality for vulnerable residents. The abstract reports that surface temperatures in the Paraisópolis favela were on average 4 °C higher than the surrounding city during heatwaves.