Discriminating People’s Attitude towards Building Physical Features in Sustainable and Conventional Buildings

Marco Caniato and Andrea Gasparella
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Marco Caniato: Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bozen 39100, Italy
Andrea Gasparella: Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bozen 39100, Italy

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 8, 1-27

Abstract: At the present time, buildings technologies for residential constructions are essentially divided into two groups. The first one is associated to conventional techniques using concrete, masonry or in general heavyweight structures, while the second one is associated to timber, e.g., sustainable glulam, crosslam, etc. (lightweight structures). Technicians, scientist, designers and non-expert people have their own stereotyped ideas and attitudes, related to thermal and sound insulation, structural stability, fire resistance, service equipment, heating and cooling systems, etc. Nevertheless, for people who is not strongly related to both construction procedure studies, analysis, experiences or focuses, timber structures appear to be more comfortable, reliable and insulated. The need of investigating the role of non-physical and non-measurable parameters in affecting future inhabitants’ overall preconceptions related to new sustainable buildings is thus of paramount importance. The hypothesis that behavioral, physiological, past experiences and psychological factors can have a non-negligible role in determining the final user perception, interaction and adaptation to timber buildings has to be verified. For these reasons, an international survey was realized in order to investigate what individuals expect from these two different construction technologies. After focused statistical analysis, it could be demonstrated how geographical difference could influence results and that, for indoor comfort, stereotypes do exist for lightweight buildings in comparison to heavyweight ones, highlighting how timber construction are associated to thermal comfort and sensed as innovative even if there is no complete distrust in conventional ones. The influence of non-physical and non-measurable parameters is correlated to people’s attitudes.

Keywords: energy efficiency and acoustics; indoor whole comfort; survey and questionnaire; timber buildings; green buildings; perception; occupants; inhabitants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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