Occupant interactions with low energy architecture: exploring usability issues

Tweed, Aidan Christopher ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7656-6460 2009. Occupant interactions with low energy architecture: exploring usability issues. Made

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Abstract

Dwellings are becoming more complicated as designers seek to cut heat losses from buildings. But to achieve a high level of performance, occupants will need to operate buildings in very specific ways. Future homes may be less like machines for living in, and more like complex systems of interconnected equipment that place significant cognitive, physical and psychological demands on those who inhabit them. Adapting to low carbon technologies will require changes to existing practices, new skills, and will offer new experiences - both good and bad - that will influence or even determine their adoption by users. This paper considers how designers of low carbon buildings can increase their understanding of how occupants might interact with these buildings. The paper draws parallels with the co-evolution of technology and users in the computing industry during the 1980s and examine the changing attitudes to 'the user' and the methods developed through usability studies to offer a better interactive experience. Such methods suggest ways of studying occupant interactions with buildings and their systems, but need to be adapted to be relevant to enclosures rather than devices.The paper highlights the relevance of Gibson's concept of affordance as a tool with which to explore the terrain.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Architecture
Subjects:	T Technology > TH Building construction N Fine Arts > NA Architecture
Publisher:	Welsh School of Architecture
ISSN:	1742-416X
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	03 May 2023 05:39
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/5392

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