The impact of climate and vegetation on the riverside architecture of the Brazilian Amazon

This research aimed to investigate the impact of vegetation conservation on the local climate and architectural production of two riverside communities in one of the capitals of the Brazilian Amazon, one close to and the other far from the urban area. Based on the inductive-exploratory method, we collected primary climatological data in the external area and inside the dwellings in both communities (October 2022 to May 2023), developed analyses of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Land Surface Temperature (LST) (August 2022 to May 2023), and finally collected architectural information from the dwellings investigated. Our results show that the climatological data from the two communities are statistically different, being more favorable to comfort in the community with greater vegetation conservation. Analysis of remote sensing images showed that vegetation density in this community indicates a strong relationship with vegetative regeneration capacity after the most critical dry months of the period investigated. Regarding thermal comfort inside dwellings, the data showed that, both through statistical analysis and the thermal comfort model adopted, the combined effect of building materials, vegetation cover, and environmental context favors better thermal comfort conditions. The results presented point to the importance of vegetation conservation, which positively influenced the local climate and thermal comfort of riverside dwellings. In addition, our results encourage the perpetuation of traditional knowledge that adapts architecture to the forest.