## 3 Results and Discussion  
### Energy Consumption in Accordance with RTQ-R  
The energy consumption of both models was quantified by summing only the energy consumption of the bedrooms, which was not considered in living room/kitchen spaces since the strategy had a low impact on their performance. Since the region does not present a well-defined winter season, there are few hours of heating demand, with lower temperatures only occurring during cold weather fronts. With the climate change impact projections, it is reduced to almost nil values in 2020 and 2050 scenarios. Thus, heating loads were disregarded in this study, as the main consumption in typologies comes from cooling demand in the long permanence rooms. The energy consumption of both the reference typology (LIHe) and the thermal mass strategy with the bermed earth-sheltered walls (LIHb) can be seen in Figure 5. In the LIHe typology, the highest and lowest average energy demand in the bedrooms occurs when walls are oriented to the north (66 kWh/m\({}^{2}\)) and to the west (63 kWh/m\({}^{2}\)), respectively. Similar results to the latter are obtained when they are oriented east and north (\(\sim\)64 kWh/m\({}^{2}\)). Thus, when the thermal mass strategy is not set in the building, the bedroom's wall orientations have a low impact on energy demand (reduction of 2% from north to west). This behavior may be attributed to the building envelope, which has been improved by increasing its thermal insulation in order to obtain level A of energy efficiency [40]. In fact, the energy consumption for cooling demand observed in this study is slightly lower to that quantified for LIHs with combined passive measures located in the Salvador and Belem city (both Am Koppen-Geiger climate type), in the northern region of Brazil, which displayed annual energy consumption of 75 kWh/m\({}^{2}\) and 85 kWh/m\({}^{2}\), respectively [9; 12]. Thus, the combined adaptation measures implemented in the standard LIH are more effective in improving the building energy performance in the base scenario than in the previous studies. The incorporation of the thermal mass strategy in the LIH provides a reduction in the bedroom's energy demand for cooling for all the orientations considered (Figure 5). In the LHIb, differently from the LIHe demand pattern, the highest year energy demand of the bedrooms can be seen when the strategy is oriented to the south (42.7 kWh/m\({}^{2}\)), while the lowest is obtained when the strategy is oriented west (39.6 kWh/m\({}^{2}\)), providing a reduction of 7.8% in the annual energy demand. Thus, the design consideration for thermal mass strategy orientation aiming to improve energy performance follows a different recommendation, regarding that observed for buildings without its use. In this sense, the adoption of the strategy in bedrooms with the Bermed earth-sheltered in the orientations tested present a 34% to 38% reduction in energy demand for cooling, with a greater reduction in the west, almost reaching the relative cooling consumption indicator established for the region of 34.48 kWh/m\({}^{2}\) to achieve level A efficiency. Thus, from a technical perspective, even for building envelopes already displaying an adequate thermal performance, the Bermed earth-sheltered wall is recommended for the tropical climate region as an alternative passive measure to improve building cooling energy performance. The strategy impacts are similar to those observed in previous building simulation studies. Thermal performance analysis of earth-sheltered residential buildings was conducted for the city of Yazd, in Iran (hot and dry region) [41]. Building Case 900 ASHRAE was employed in a prospective study, with progressively changing depth of the soil surrounding the housing prototype [42]. In this case, the highest energy consumption was found when the main facade (not in contact with the earth) was oriented to the north, i.e., when the Bermed earth-sheltered wall was displayed in the south, confirming the best disposition obtained in this research.