## 3 Results and Discussion
### Envelope Performance According to RTQ-R
Despite the observed impacts, LIHb typology is proposed as a climate-responsive design strategy to counterbalance the effects caused by climate change in a situation where natural ventilation occurs 24 h per day, However, its impact is lower than that observed in cooling energy demand, in which the HVAC system is switched on at night when the indoor temperature is above the thermostat temperature, defined as a baseline thermal comfort temperature in the RTQ-R [23]. In the 2020 scenario, the reduction provided by the implementation of the strategy varies from 11% to 16%, depending on the orientation, when compared to the thermal performance of the building without the strategy. The same occurs in the 2050 scenario, with a variation between 9% and 12%. The highest reduction in the thermal performance was shown when the thermal mass strategy was oriented to the west, with a 13.9% average reduction, even so, less expressive than that shown for energy consumption. These projections corroborate the previous study conducted with the same low-income house, but with different types of passive strategies used in building envelopes and without the bermed earth-sheltered wall. Projections in the CDH indicator are expected to increase 31.3% and 28.6% in 2020 and 2050 scenarios [13]. However, in the standard LIH without any adaptation measures and with the use of bermed earth walls, the reduction in CDH is similar to that observed in this research [45]. The bermed earth-sheltered wall strategy, when compared with other isolated measures, displays a lower reduction in terms of percentage [12]: the wall with solar absorptance 0.3 (base scenario reduction: 34.28% \(|\) 2050 Scenario reduction: 25.97%), concrete wall with insulation (55.55% \(|\) 37.14%), and clay roof replaced by a metal roof with 0.07 m of insulation and solar absorptance 0.3 (57.87% \(|\) 39.88%). Thus, in terms of CDH, the bermed earth-sheltered strategy in this study is less expressive when compared to the isolated measures tested in the previous study. One may note CDH is weighted by the areas of the long permanence rooms, including the living room/kitchen, which has the same area as the sum of the bedrooms area and is not in contact with the bermed earth-sheltered walls. Thus, this room reduced the potential strategy impact (by at least half) due to its lower performance than the ones in contact with the ground. Yet, this behavior may be attributed to the fact that before simulations, LIH was redesigned to improve original buildings' thermal and energy performance, which makes it difficult to improve its envelope due to its already high thermal insulation. Due to the future trend of air temperature raising, foreseen in the future climate change scenarios, the building efficiency level, which is \"A\" for LIHe and LIHb in the base scenario, decreases when the future potential impacts of climate change are incorporated into the weather data. In the 2020 scenario, the building energy efficiency is reduced to level \"C\", with an exception in LIHb for west orientation, where level \"B\" is reached. In the 2050 scenario, all orientation became level \"E\", again with an exception in LIHb for west orientation, with level \"D\". Thus, this orientation must be preferred to achieve the best energy and thermal performance. Similar decreasing in building energy efficiency is also reported for five-star buildings analyzed in Darwin, Australia, and in Guangdong Province, South China, due to the raising of the energy requirement in the 2050 scenario [7; 10]. Thisfact indicates the need to establish specific design guidelines in the building environmental certification codes to deal with this potential issue.