LIFE BUILDING X

ABSTRACT

The next frontier in energy conservation centers on user behavior. As energy codes become more stringent and building envelopes improve, it is the energy use under the direct control of the occupant that will have the greatest impact on the environment. With regard to the design of the physical environment, we recognize that an approach incorporating both building science and user behavior is necessary if progress is to be made toward Climate Change goals put forward by the 2015 Paris Agreement. This study, LIFEBUILDINGX, offers an integrated transdisciplinary research design approach. The design of the physical environment and people’s relationship with that environment are both important factors related to energy conservation. While social scientists have developed theoretical frameworks to understand people’s pro-environmental behaviors and relationships to place, many have overlooked the role of the built environment—and high-performance design in particular—in that relationship. Conversely, architects focused on high-performance net-zero design often do not seek to understand how people live in and make sense of their environments. Drawing these two approaches together, a mixed-methods study comparing two housing communities in the Pacific Northwest was conducted to understand people’s residential energy use behavior and how that relates to physical and social aspects of their environment as well as their values, identity, and place attachment. Study sites include a Built Green Community (Site 1) designed to state-of-the-art “green” building standards for low energy use and a Code-built Community (Site 2) built according to more conventional minimal energy code standards. Research methods include the benchmarking of actual household energy consumption, the introduction of a treatment (a monitoring dashboard showing a household’s energy use) and the administration of a pre-and post-test survey on perceptions related to energy use, along with in-depth qualitative interviews of a sub-sample of participants.

To read/download full paper, please fill out our contact form here.