The Impact of Epidemics on Future Residential Buildings in China

With global pandemics such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the recent novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), awareness of disease prevention and control is increasing. Concern over the spread of viruses within residential buildings, especially multi-unit apartment and condominium buildings, is growing. The design of residential buildings in China is often focused on comfort, aesthetics, appearance, and lifestyle. This is in contrast to Western countries, where physical and mental health considerations are integrated with the design of residential buildings. Many recent reports and investigations have focused on infection and cross-infection of diseases and viruses occurring in residential buildings, especially in countries with high population density such as China. Due to COVID-19’s rapid community spread almost everywhere on the globe, including Asia, North American, the Middle East, and Europe, many local governments have issued lockdown and curfew restrictions to limit people from traveling or even leaving their residence for anything but essential purposes. Lockdown restrictions have been proven effective as 78% to 85% of COVID-19 infections have occurred within families instead of in the community. Thus, lockdown restrictions lower the chances of the virus being transmitted outside of a family. However, self-isolation can be difficult when living with other family members, and there is a high risk of household transmission. Accordingly, this thesis makes recommendations to minimize the risk of household transmission. This thesis briefly discusses how diseases and viruses can spread in buildings and what steps can be taken to lower the risk of disease transmission in residential units. The thesis begins by outlining research on residential building floor plans in main cities in China, namely Beijing. It then discusses how these designs are insufficient for the prevention and control of disease transmission. Lastly, the thesis suggests alternative solutions not only to prevent disease transmission but also to improve residents’ daily hygiene regimens. A novel concept for floor plans can help reduce disease transmission and promote a healthy living environment

Consumer Location Based Service Perceptions and Response: a focus on Location Based Services and Emerging Mobile Lifestyles

Location Based Services (LBS) and electronically mediated lifestyles (e-lifestyles) represent emergent new areas with approaches (e.g. apps and e-activities) billed to change customer experiences and responses. Marketers are confronted with a challenge of understanding how consumers engage with mobile services and how to design appropriate strategies towards that (Donovan, 2013). A review of extant literature has indicated that the implementation of marketing strategies based on LBS is still in its infancy, and yet to gain widespread acceptance by consumers. The role of individual differences in consumer response to LBS is not reported in any substantive way in the literature- yet we know that e-lifestyles are now shaping different consumer responses to LBS. This PhD addresses this important area, with a focus on the role of e-lifestyles in consumer response to location-based services. The study relied on a sequential multimethod qualitative method of enquiry. Initially, in the first phase of data collection, relevant LBS websites were observed over a three-month period to explore consumer familiarity, attitudes and experience, offering some rich insights into consumer LBS awareness. In phase two of the research, specialist interviews (thirty-eight in total) were used in conjunction with cartoon tests as an effective way to establish the role of e-lifestyles, situational decision making as well as capturing actual (typical) consumer response in LBS encounters. In phase three, three focus groups were conducted with different user groups (young students, young professionals and older established working participants with families) to examine the role of individual factors in consumer LBS response. Findings in the study point to good experience with LBS with some selective engagement depending on user group profile, which broke down into ‘Involved’, ‘Observer’ or ‘Transaction’ orientations. Phase two (innovative cartoon tests) led to findings that mapped actual consumer response pathways in simulated encounters- four response pathways unique to this study emerged (immediate, delayed/future response, socially-mediated response and indifference). Findings also point towards influential individual factors such as variation on the basis of life stage, distinct patterns of proactivity and reactivity to LBS messages and the importance of situational factors on the nature of LBS response. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on LBS and e-lifestyles theory by providing deeper insights on actual consumer response process in typical LBS encounters (e.g. the UK context). It adds fresh insights into typical response processes by using specialist scenarios reflective of typical LBS encounters to map key response pathways, capturing ‘live’ customer experiences of different forms of LBS and interrogating the rationale behind individual responses using LBS scenarios. Findings also offer a clearer classification of customer response types (e.g. proactive and self-referencing LBS; reactive and cross-referencing LBS). By combining situational context, e-lifestyle and individual attributes influencing individual response to LBS in a single study, this research takes forward the argument of Weiss (2013) on the need for more in-depth examination of consumer response to LBS and takes further previous LBS adoption studies (Zhou, 2012)

Learning from co-housing initiatives:

Following the UN world summits on Climate Change (Paris 2015) and Habitat (Quito 2016), most European cities assume an active role to implement internationally agreed goals related to climate change, translated in the so-called New Urban Agenda. At the same time, the urban housing market is increasingly inaccessible for low- and middle-income households. To overcome problems such as failing housing supply and high energy-bills, groups of residents take initiatives to create and manage housing projects collectively; these initiatives are further indicated as ‘co-housing’. The aim of this study is to create deeper understanding of the current rise of co-housing in Europe, and what it could mean in urban policies addressing energy transition and climate change. There are two domains where co-housing can become an important asset for urban development: design and maintenance of (semi-)public space for climate change mitigation, and the transition to a circular metabolism in housing. Based on empirical data, this thesis concludes that co-housing projects present relevant models and approaches for reducing the energy consumption and for integrating renewable energies in the general housing stock. Engineers can learn from co-housing pioneers to advance the targets for energy-transition and further develop sustainable cities. The thesis contributes to the emerging body of knowledge with a new understanding of co-housing, analysing its ‘key-features’ with an interdisciplinary framework, in a European context. It adds a new perspective to existing co-housing research, which is dominated by social sciences, by drawing attention to the physical characteristics of co-housing, produced in architectural, planning and engineering processes (the technosphere). The choices made during design and building are not only shaped by the residents’ aims and perception of sustainability, but also influenced by technosphere-related institutions, such as the building-components industry, energy or waste networks and providers, and planning regulations. The professional partners for the projects, such as housing associations and engineers, are equally affected by the institutional context, but their position is different from that of residents. They may for example be more anchored in governmental or professional regulations. To structure this dynamic, the research distinguishes three interrelated aspects: ACTORS / involved in the (realisation of) projects: social practices of residents and their professional partners in co-creation. CONTEXT / the structural forces surrounding the projects, specifically the macroinstitutional regimes. This also includes culturally determined interpretations of sustainability, technology, participation, societal roles, sharing, and so on. TECHNOSPHERE / specifically building technology and utilities, focussing on energyrelated design and engineering of the co-housing projects. The thesis is primarily based on qualitative methods, as it found that reliable quantitative data are as yet unavailable. Looking for effective low-impact energysolution in co-housing, quantitative data remain however necessary and this thesis elaborates on pitfalls and possibilities for their accumulation. Empirical material from Dutch case-studies form the core of the research. Examples were also taken from countries where the re-emergence of co-housing is most visible and articulate: Belgium, France, Germany, the UK and Switzerland. Co-housing continues to develop and gain experiences with competences, such as communication skills and the ability to work cross-disciplinarily. The building industry and engineering professions increasingly call for such capabilities, but resident-led urban development have not yet entered the urbanism and engineering curricula. Therefore, opportunities should be provided for future professionals not only to acquire such capabilities but also to address fundamental questions related to residentinvolvement and democracy. This will enable future professionals to create a balance between ‘bottom-up’ articulated needs on the quality of living environments with large-scale investments in new urban energy, mobility and mutual care networks

Learning from co-housing initiatives — Between Passivhaus engineers and active inhabitants

Following the UN world summits on Climate Change (Paris 2015) and Habitat (Quito 2016), most European cities assume an active role to implement internationally agreed goals related to climate change, translated in the so-called New Urban Agenda. At the same time, the urban housing market is increasingly inaccessible for low- and middle-income households. To overcome problems such as failing housing supply and high energy-bills, groups of residents take initiatives to create and manage housing projects collectively; these initiatives are further indicated as ‘co-housing’.  The aim of this study is to create deeper understanding of the current rise of co-housing in Europe, and what it could mean in urban policies addressing energy transition and climate change. There are two domains where co-housing can become an important asset for urban development: design and maintenance of (semi-)public space for climate change mitigation, and the transition to a circular metabolism in housing. Based on empirical data, this thesis concludes that co-housing projects present relevant models and approaches for reducing the energy consumption and for integrating renewable energies in the general housing stock. Engineers can learn from co-housing pioneers to advance the targets for energy-transition and further develop sustainable cities. The thesis contributes to the emerging body of knowledge with a new understanding of co-housing, analysing its ‘key-features’ with an interdisciplinary framework, in a European context. It adds a new perspective to existing co-housing research, which is dominated by social sciences, by drawing attention to the physical characteristics of co-housing, produced in architectural, planning and engineering processes (the technosphere). The choices made during design and building are not only shaped by the residents’ aims and perception of sustainability, but also influenced by technosphere-related institutions, such as the building-components industry, energy or waste networks and providers, and planning regulations. The professional partners for the projects, such as housing associations and engineers, are equally affected by the institutional context, but their position is different from that of residents. They may for example be more anchored in governmental or professional regulations. To structure this dynamic, the research distinguishes three interrelated aspects: ACTORS / involved in the (realisation of) projects: social practices of residents and their professional partners in co-creation. CONTEXT / the structural forces surrounding the projects, specifically the macroinstitutional regimes. This also includes culturally determined interpretations of sustainability, technology, participation, societal roles, sharing, and so on. TECHNOSPHERE / specifically building technology and utilities, focussing on energyrelated design and engineering of the co-housing projects. The thesis is primarily based on qualitative methods, as it found that reliable quantitative data are as yet unavailable. Looking for effective low-impact energysolution in co-housing, quantitative data remain however necessary and this thesis elaborates on pitfalls and possibilities for their accumulation. Empirical material from Dutch case-studies form the core of the research. Examples were also taken from countries where the re-emergence of co-housing is most visible and articulate: Belgium, France, Germany, the UK and Switzerland. Co-housing continues to develop and gain experiences with competences, such as communication skills and the ability to work cross-disciplinarily. The building industry and engineering professions increasingly call for such capabilities, but resident-led urban development have not yet entered the urbanism and engineering curricula. Therefore, opportunities should be provided for future professionals not only to acquire such capabilities but also to address fundamental questions related to residentinvolvement and democracy. This will enable future professionals to create a balance between ‘bottom-up’ articulated needs on the quality of living environments with large-scale investments in new urban energy, mobility and mutual care networks