Understanding Expectations

This section of the book explores the impacts

of expectations from dif ferent viewpoints –

economic, social, behavioural, and at

different scales from personal to global. The

word ‘expectation’ means different things to

different people – is it something that might

happen, that probably will happen, or that

should happen? Is it something to do with

‘right’ or merely the result of a statistical

probability? In common usage, ‘expectation’

carries an implicit assumption that, if

possible, it is met or fulfilled. Ever since

Admiral Lord Nelson’s famous ‘England

expects that every man will do his duty’, we

associate expecta tions with justification –

we expect a good health service, we expect

law and order. Expectation at a social level

suggests momentum for aspects of our way

of life – shelter, transport, communications,

hygiene, education, enter tainment. It may

come as a shock to consider that this

fundamental trait, which we regard as

inevitable as water flowing downhill, as

universal as gravity, could be contributing to

the global environmental and social crisis

which is threatening the next decade and

beyond. Is anything in common between the

‘expectation of the Western world to have

cheap and plentiful food’ and the

‘expectation of a person sitting next to an

open window to experience draughts’, or do

the two syndrome simply share the same

word? This section brings together four

contribu tions that cover this wide scale. The

commentary at the end of this section

weaves a network between what may at first

appear to be disparate elements. Seaden

(Chapter 9) argues that the construction

industry free market should and will respond

to clients’ requirements and, though he may

not 128 Buildings, Culture and Environment

say it explicitly, clients’ aspirations and

expectations. For environmen tally friendly

solutions, this places a very heavy demand

on the education of the client and design

team. Other industries are cited as

exemplars of innovation promoted through

competition. In this context of competition,

the supplier hones the product to the

consumers’ demand in order to gain

competitive advantage. But is this

comparison applicable to the con struction

industry? Buildings have long lives and can

endure for several generations – their

requirements are different from other more

disposable consumer goods. In addition,

buildings stay still and are rooted to one

place. Building design has a notoriously high

inertia and a long feedback loop. The

timescales for innovation and change

brought about by this process may be too

slow or otherwise inappropriate to meet the

current environmental and social challeges.

The expectation of thermal comfort is

assessed by Brager and de Dear (Chapter 11).

This chapter traces the history of the growth

of demand for air-conditioning, fuelled

largely by vigorous post-World War II

advertising campaigns. This growing demand

is also supported in parallel by the growth of

national and international standards,

resulting in energy inten sive mechanical

systems being almost obligatory. More

significantly, they also question the science

on which the current standards and codes of

practice are based. This highlights the danger

of international regulation where not only

are regulations inappropriate to the context,

but may even be fundamentally wrong.

Broader aspects of user satisfaction with

buildings are investigated by Leaman

(Chapter 10), who refers to results from

extensive field studies. Of the many relevant

findings, one that relates to expectations is

the atti tude of users to personal control of

their environment – whether via a

thermostat dial or a complaint to the

building manager. Has this touched on the

fundamental nature of expectation – to be,

to some extent, in control of one’s own

environment? The transfer of technical

information between and across cultures is

crucial for meeting the global environmental

challenge. Moreover, it will increasingly

affect built environment designers, clients,

educators and researchers. Curwell (Chapter

12) describes BEQUEST (Building Environ

mental Quality Evaluation for Sustainability

through Time), which was a concerted-

action research project concerned with

sustainable urban development involving

different cultures. This provides lessons for

the formation of cross-cultural networks and

the necessary adaptation of international

information for use at a local level.

Understanding Expectations 129 It remains

to be seen if the diffusion of beneficial and

well intentioned environmentally friendly

technical and scientific knowledge will be suf

f icient and in time. It may be that the same

systems of global communi cation are far

more effective at diffusing the unsustainable

expectations of the Western world. This

issue is discussed in the section commentary

(Chapter 13). 9 The Role of the Client in

Shaping the Satisfactory Outcome of the

Construction Process George Seaden

Introduction The last quarter of the

twentieth century was strongly influenced

by the rapid expansion of world trade, which

in turn created changes in most national and

regional markets. This development has

been compounded by the fact that

consumers have established themselves as a

significant factor in defining the nature of

production of manufactured goods and

services. Customer satisfaction is emerging

as an important competitive tool, the impact

of which on the construction industry is

rendered more complex, given several

exogenous driving forces such as financial

markets or innovation. Depicting these

trends is very much an exercise of gazing into

the rear view mirror while trying to plan the

route ahead. While they need con tinuous

adjustment, some of the major factors that

are likely to have rel evance to buyers of

goods or services appear to be well

established. Given that the industry is

currently in transition, it is important to con

sider customer satisfaction and related

dynamics when examining pos sible

measures that are necessary to ensure

sustainable development of the built

environment. This is because such measures

need be compati ble not only with

construction industry practices, but also with

the client or the user who will need to agree

to such more environmentally compat ible

solutions and actually pay for them. The

terms ‘client’, ‘customer’, ‘purchaser’ and

‘user’ are used inter changeably in this

chapter to indicate the demand side of

construction, The Role of the Client 131 and

the terms ‘builder’ or ‘contractor’, together

with architects, engineers and other

members of the design team, to indicate the

supply side. The issue of who is the ‘real’

purchaser or ultimate user is not addressed

here. In the current competitive context

(Halpin and Huang, 1995), with its emphasis

on total quality management (TQM),

satisfying the immediate as well as the

ultimate beneficiary of the construction

process is para mount in overall customer

satisfaction. This chapter is primarily based

on economic and production practices cur

rently found in industrially developed

countries, particularly those with a

pronounced free-market approach. More

often than not, these countries tend to have

strong ties to Anglo-American cultural and

democratic gov ernance values. While the

populations of these countries represent

only a small portion of the citizens of the

planet, their share of the global economy

exceeds 50%. Perceived and/or real values

and acquisition habits of these countries are

disseminated throughout the all-pervasive

‘global village’ communication systems,

which have enabled access to a con tinuous

barrage of information promoting purchase

of goods and services, with significant

marketing content emulating Western

lifestyles. No argument will be presented in

this chapter as to the validity of one way of

life versus another in a world of inherent

cultural, religious or geo climatic differences.

As a matter of record, there are many

examples of inappropriate use of

‘international’ style products or services of

construc tion or manufacturing nature, when

more traditional, locally sensitive

approaches would be more advantageous.

Nevertheless, in much of the world, there

has been a growth of middle-class

consumers with increas ing disposable

income. Even in underdeveloped countries,

small groups of well-off consumers are

present. It is this cluster of clients and their

pref erence for ‘world’ style of goods and

services that tend to set international

acceptance standards. As will be suggested

in greater detail, acquisition decisions by con

sumers take place in a complex context of

prevailing supply and demand forces,

regulatory regimes, availability of financial

resources and many other market factors.

Purchaser views of real or perceived benefits

to be derived from a specific acquisition

decision are particularly important in the

open, free-market economies. Ultimately, it

is their choice to max imise their immediate

gratification or to take into account more

regional, social and/or environmental

values. To ensure the success of sustainable

development a balance is required between

quick satisfaction of cus tomers and an

investment in the needs of the community

and of future generations. 132 Buildings,

Culture and Environment Hence, at least in

the countries with free-market economies,

‘top-down’ government-led sustainability

policies are likely to encounter difficulties

unless there is also a popular, ‘grass roots’

level of consumer demand for such product

characteristics. In the context of large global

firms’ focus on the consumer as the source

of competitive advantage, the role of the

client is examined, as well as of other factors

and relationships that influence the outcome

of the con struction process. Even though

there are indications of dissatisfaction with

construction goods and services in many

countries, given the influence of local

practices and traditions, this analysis and its

findings are limited in scope to industrially

developed countries with a market based

discipline. It presents a framework of the

principal driving forces that shape the

outcome of the building process, based on

the available knowledge and research

regarding construction markets in the United

Kingdom, the United States, Canada and

some European countries. It also comments

on some challenges facing the introduction

of sustainability measures. First, changes in

the global manufacturing firms that have led

to greater consumer focus are examined and

compared to the behaviour of the

construction industry. Then various

characteristics of this industry and of its

customers are reviewed, including some that

are likely to lead to less than optimal ‘value’

solutions. Construction does not operate in

isolation; therefore the powerful contextual

forces of financial markets on perceived

value and on the cost of ownership are

assessed. Regulatory regimes as a means of

protecting the buyer and expressing societal

values are analysed, innovation as a

potential driver towards enhanced

performance is examined, and results of

several recently under taken construction

customer surveys are reported. Finally, the

role of the client within the project

management process is looked at, with the

difficulties inherent to the temporary,

virtual, multi-organisational structure. It is

concluded that the satisfactory outcome of

the construction process is shaped by several

contextual drivers, namely the intrinsic

characteris tics of the industry, the financial

markets and the regulatory regimes.

However, in the context of a supply–demand

equilibrium, clients’ needs and preferences

have been gaining in importance. Current

trends to move away from the traditional

design–bid–build practice into more open,

trust ing, risk sharing relationships of joint

ventures, alliances or partnerships signal a

change in the customer–supplier

relationship towards greater sat The Role of

the Client 133 isfaction. As an alternative,

some clients are choosing not to be involved

in the construction process at all and simply

purchase the use of con structed facilities.

Consumer satisfaction as a source of

competitive advantage We are well aware of

numerous ‘world’ brands offered

internationally in pharmaceuticals,

automobiles, food, aircraft, sports

equipment, com munications, soft drinks,

banking or entertainment. There is almost an

infinite array of services and products

offered by large global firms now perceived

as having ‘gold’ standards of quality,

serviceability, functional ity and overall

satisfactory performance. With the

increasing openness of world trade there has

been ever-growing interest in what made

these global firms truly competitive.

Opinions on that matter have evolved

greatly since the mid-1970s and continue to

be open to debate. Porter (1998) and others

suggest that companies have been

responding to the challenge of superior

quality and lower prices through continuous

improvement in their operational

effectiveness. Re engineering, lean

production, investments in information

technology, TQM and other techniques of

optimising productivity and asset utilisa tion

have now all become parts of companies’

efforts to become and/or remain

competitive in the global market place.

Porter also suggests that continuous

improvement in best practice utilisation

must now be con sidered a pre-condition to

achieve profitability, and that companies

have to create unique competitive positions

through integration of all their

competencies. To have a truly lasting

competitive advantage they need to offer

differentiated, value-creating new products

to their customers. Quality, durability and

serviceability at a reasonable price are now

expected as a norm from suppliers of goods

and services. Multi-national and increasingly

global manufacturing companies have

emerged that are able (Govindarajan and

Gupta, 1997) to: • reduce capital, product

development and operating costs per unit; •

use their significant purchasing power to

minimize input costs, obtain volume trade

terms and reduce transaction costs by

standardisation; and • build a world-class

position in specific areas through strategies

of core competency. 134 Buildings, Culture

and Environment These companies have

been able to expand their international

market share by offering to their customers

better initial price/quality perfor mance as

well as satisfactory after-purchase service. In

turn, these companies require a multitude of

accounting, legal, adver tising and consulting

advice, and global service organisations have

fol lowed this opportunity (Nahapiet, 1997).

Integrated service firms, with extensive

knowledge of local constraints yet linked

internationally to share best practices,

compete with their expertise pools and high

degree of responsiveness. Until recently, it

had been generally assumed that local f irms

have certain natural advantages of a better

understanding of regional or national

preferences, regulations and cultural

differences as well as greater facility with

local sourcing and distribution channels. But

increas ingly, global firms are able to

promote internationally desirable goods and

services or, when necessary, to customise

their production to suit local requirements.

An underlying theme of this global evolution

is to gain competitive ad vantage over the

‘commodity’ type suppliers by offering a

differentiated product or process that

provides unique long-term advantages to

the cus tomer. Global firms that have been

successful in this game enjoy higher margins

of profit while continuously investing in new

ways to meet or exceed their clients’

expectations. Accordingly, customers’ needs

and wishes are continuously probed and

investigated through satisfaction surveys

and focus groups and are shaped by carefully

designed marketing campaigns. New

product or service launches are designed

and then fine-tuned, with variable

approaches for different cultural or socio-

economic groups. However, the main

purpose is to create a perception or an image

in the mind of the buyer (supported by a

measure of reality) of an improved and

better offer ing. International companies

seldom make radical changes to their core

product lines but there is continuous effort

to make marginal adjustments in the

functionality, utility or packaging in order to

deliver ‘new and better’. Feedback is actively

solicited and complaints are responded to.

Retaining current customers is considered

essential, and adding new ones a priority for

ongoing success. Increasingly, customers

and suppliers of goods and services,

particularly those of a more complicated

nature (aeroplanes, communication

systems, enterprise data management), look

beyond the immediate commercial

transaction at a reasonable price. They wish

to enter into an extended, The Role of the

Client 135 mutually beneficial relationship

where the total service provided is the key

deliverable. It should not be forgotten that

even in the most industrially advanced

countries, a significant portion of the

industrial output is still being delivered by

small and medium size enterprises (SME)

with a local focus. Repair shops, medical

clinics, educational institutions, specialised

manufacturers or food processors continue

to cater to local tastes or preferences,

making sure that a satisfied clientèle is the

basis of their success. In contrast with such

deliberate client-orientation, analyses of

satisfac tion with the output of the

construction industry shows a different

image. An American construction industry

group (The White House – Con struction

Industry Workshop, 1994) noted many

deficiencies in construc tion projects and set

some broad improvements goals for both

the construction process and facilities use: •

50% reduction in project delivery time • 50%

reduction in operations/maintenance costs •

30% increase in facility comfort and

productivity • 50% fewer occupant-related

illnesses and injuries. A British study of

construction, known as the Egan Report

(Construction Task Force, 1998), also

focused on delivering value and satisfaction

to clients and set continuous improvement

goals for the construction process: • 10%

annual reduction in construction cost and

time • 20% annual reduction in project

defects. There is a long history, extending to

the present day, of problems in the

construction industry. Process issues such as

lack of timely delivery, quality issues,

uncertain value for money and uneven post-

delivery service continue to affect many

builders and their clients. These problems do

not originate from a single source and there

are no simple solutions. As will be described

in the following sections, construction is a

complex industry subject to many powerful

driving forces. Some are external to the

production process, others are inherent to

the very nature of the output. However,

some improvements can and are being made

to enhance the level of satisfaction. 136

Buildings, Culture and Environment

Characteristics of the construction output

Buildings, bridges, roads and other

constructed works almost always intrude on

the physical environment and tend to impact

on the sur rounding community. Once

implemented they are complicated to

change, and are made to last many decades,

sometimes even centuries. To remain

functional they require continuous repair

and upgrading. Every con structed project is

essentially unique (Carassus, 1998),

primarily because of the particularities of

different locations and the influence of the

weather on the site work. Even in the case of

highly prefabricated residential proj ects

consisting of identical units, every home is

likely to be somewhat different. The above-

mentioned characteristics have often led to

the sug gestion that construction is different

from other industries and is simply not

amenable to comparative analysis.

Nevertheless, from a purely production

perspective, particularly when it concerns

new construction, it is essentially an

assembly-oriented indus try, with a

reasonably complex supply chain, operating

mostly in a project mode. Most construction

output consists of putting together standard

prefabricated modular elements or sub-

assemblies. There is still a great amount of

variation from project to project but, based

on the recent experi ence of new approaches

to offshore platform construction (CRINE,

1995), greater use of standard sub-modules

could lead to improved performance. A

certain amount of customised, project-

specific work still exists, but prefabrication of

structural elements, wall panels, HVAC

ducting, piping and many other assemblies is

now common. In some countries, production

of even more complex sub-modules

(bathrooms, kitchens, major service

bundles) is undertaken in a quasi-

manufacturing mode, with all the benefits of

prototyping, consumer evaluation and

quality assurance. There is also production of

complete homes (predominantly in North

America) that are fully manufactured off-site

and then only require a foundation and a

service connection before being ready for

delivery to customers. Using techniques

common to the manufacturing industries

(e.g. limited production runs with some

customisation) has allowed this sector of the

industry to deliver reasonably satisfactory

results. Although construction is less

amenable to mass production tech niques, it

could take advantage of current computer

assisted advanced manufacturing processes

with precise tolerances, continuous quality

control and fewer defects. Only a limited

number of construction projects have truly

unique features because of their location

(harbours, roads) or dedication to support a

very The Role of the Client 137 specific

service or industrial purpose (medical

laboratories, aluminium smelters).

Politicians, promoters or buyers of sports

arenas, museums and other civic or

‘prestige’ initiatives will often wish their

projects to be one of-a-kind to a point where

the use of standard sub-assemblies may not

be advantageous, and may even be contrary

to customer desires. All such projects display

the typical characteristics of Complex

Product and Systems (CoPS) (Hobday, 2001),

and unless the appropriate project man

agement and industrial process base have

been implemented, including broad

representation of all interests, they tend to

become subject to cost and delivery

overruns, and general dissatisfaction.

Another important aspect of the

construction industry is that in most

industrialised countries the majority of

constructed assets are already in place and

need to be maintained. Thus, some 30% to

50% of building activ ity is dedicated to

repair, renovation or upgrade. Many of these

projects require traditional skills, methods

and materials corresponding to the origi nal

work, and advanced industrial approaches

may not be applicable. All transactions

between the purchaser and the supplier of

construction goods and services are subject

to numerous contextual factors that strongly

influence the final outcome. Traditionally,

locally available building materials were

used because of bulk and the weight

considera tions, cost or suitability to local

climatic conditions. However, lighter and

stronger materials, advances in

modularisation, and improvements in

transportation techniques have made long

distance sourcing economically feasible.

Construction labour tended to be skilled in

certain crafts, often associated with local

building traditions, but with increasing off-

site pre fabrication and sub-assembly site

workers now appear to be recruited from

economically deprived regions with limited

construction skills such as Mexico, Thailand

and Eastern Europe. Construction is an

industry dominated by small firms

undertaking small local projects. In most

countries there are few companies with true

indus trial structure, and market share of

such organisations rarely exceeds 2–3% of

domestic construction volume. There are

even fewer multina tional organizations

comparable in size and scope to the global

manufac turing businesses. Thus,

construction output presents many facets.

Some projects are or could be produced by

processes similar to manufacturing and thus

achieve higher levels of consumer

satisfaction. Others are truly of a custom

nature and remain in the domain of

craftsmanship. 138 Buildings, Culture and

Environment Perceived value and ownership

cost Studies of construction customer

preferences (Chinyio et al., 1998; Wong et

al., 2000) indicate that clients are mostly

concerned with obtaining ‘value’ through a

reasonable balance between initial capital

outlay and costs of operation, while also

achieving high performance and function

ality. Irrespective if the project is of a public

or private nature, there is an inherent cost of

ownership and an expectation of a positive

return on investment, through a flow of

earnings or equivalent benefits. By their very

nature, construction projects are capital

intensive. Since owners only rarely have

large surpluses of capital funds, borrowing

significant amounts on financial markets and

high leverage ratios are typical of the

construc tion industry. Since the mid-

twentieth century, financial markets have

been subject to major shifts. However,

trends have emerged since the early 1990s

with important impacts on the cost of capital

and thus on the behaviour of buyers of

construction. From 1945 onwards,

governments of almost all countries made

massive investments in an infrastructure of

roads, bridges, schools, hospitals and public

housing while at the same time creating a

social welfare network, all through deficit

financing. As a consequence, borrowing

requirements of governments grew,

together with increasing inflation. This

created an ideal situation for the owners.

The demand for buildings and infrastructure

increased rapidly with the growth of popula

tion thus ensuring that all newly available

space was immediately filled. At the same

time, the value of their assets grew with

inflation while their long-term financial

obligations decreased in real terms. Thus,

maximum borrowing and rapid construction

became the game to maximise the owner’s

financial benefits. In the face of rapidly

escalating values, project quality and user

satisfaction became a lesser priority. This

scenario of the ‘real estate bubble’ finally

imploded in the late 1980s, though pockets

of inflationary excesses and of speculative

owners’ behaviour continue to exist. There

have also been significant changes in the

factors influencing ownership cost since the

early 1990s. Most developed countries have

become more disciplined with respect to

public funds, first reducing and then

eliminating deficit budgeting. As well, there

has been agreement amongst central banks

of major industrial countries to contain

inflation to low levels. Furthermore, highly

competitive world trade and global f inancial

systems have created opportunities for rapid

deployment of funds to the time and place

where returns can be maximised (Swynge

douw, 1992). Shorter-term investments in

equity financing, particularly The Role of the

Client 139 of high technology ventures,

brought in returns far in excess of those on

longer-term, fixed asset investments in

construction projects. Institutions and

individuals discovered that with inflation

contained, constructed assets did not

automatically grow in value. In fact, their

assets could depreciate, unless they were of

high quality and attracted satisfied users to

generate positive earnings flow. At the same

time, many private industrial and

commercial organisations examined their

operations from the perspective of their core

competence, and found that ownership of

buildings or infrastructure was not essential

to their mission. The return on investment of

their fixed assets was dis covered by these

clients to be less than satisfactory, thus

precipitating policies of divestment and

leasebacks from specialised firms. The public

sector also increasingly discovered that it did

not need to own constructed facilities. The

required space and/or infrastructure

services could be pur chased through a

competitive process, with guarantees of

performance and satisfaction. In this

context, perhaps the most important factor

is the low level (0–3%) of inflation with an

occasional excursion into the deflationary

range. With escalating capital asset values

not available and no shortage of available

space, owners of built facilities find

themselves under conventional business

pressures. Earnings rather than valuation

became important to investors. Hence it

could reasonably be expected that

satisfactory return on invest ment in a

construction project would be a good overall

indicator of a positive outcome for the client.

However, different customers tend to be

motivated by a variety of factors beyond

overall profitability. Those who are selling or

renting single family houses or

apartments/con dominiums in multifamily

units and/or general-purpose office,

commer cial and industrial space clearly

need to maintain a positive return on

investment to remain in business. Purpose,

performance and quality expectations for

such spaces are fairly well established and

easy to compare on a relative basis, although

difficult to measure in absolute terms. In

many instances builders and developers

anticipate the market and undertake such

projects on a ‘speculative’ basis. While

demand for constructed space is notoriously

difficult to evaluate, in most industrially

developed countries (excluding certain areas

with rapid urban growth) supply now

matches local needs, with an array of

offerings at different price/quality points.

Under those circumstances, knowledgeable

cus tomers are generally unwilling to acquire

‘at any cost’ or ‘at any quality’ 140 Buildings,

Culture and Environment and are able to

obtain satisfactory ‘value-based’ projects at

market rates. Less discriminating purchasers,

with little understanding of what they are

buying and/or being tempted by bargain

pricing, end up at the mercy of market

forces, much as in other sectors of the

economy. Clients who depend on earnings

directly generated by the constructed facility

(toll roads, transmission lines, power

stations, etc.) also have a fairly simple value

relationship. Such projects are generally very

capital intensive, and careful planning of the

expected total ownership costs (capital and

operating) is an essential element of the

decision to proceed. With the exception of

overenthusiastic corporate promoters who

tend to underestimate the cost and the time

of completion, most customers look to

positive financial results as a source of

satisfaction. There are also public or private

customers (Seymour, 1987) who seek to

build more specialised projects, in order to

further production of industrial goods

(customised industrial buildings,

laboratories) or social services (hospitals,

educational institutions). The purpose and

performance of such capital assets are

closely linked to the desired production or

service char acteristics. At the outset of

these projects, many customers have uncer

tain expectations of the outcome. Their

needs and wants are generally modified

during the construction period.

Furthermore, their budgeting practice tends

to treat capital and operating expenditure as

separate items, and organisational

arrangements prevail where one corporate

division will implement the capital project

and another will operate it. Under those cir

cumstances optimal purchase decisions are

often difficult. In this category of projects

two groups of customers can be identified,

as follows: • Those where the operational

expenses (labour, supplies, administra tion)

and the cost of installed equipment are

considerably higher than of the construction

itself. Projects in support of expanded

industrial production or services are

generally driven by rapidly changing market

forces, where being able to provide the

facility as rapidly as possible appears to be

more important than the financial discipline

or the oper ational functionality. Given the

time required for planning, design and

approvals, such projects are often

completed in great haste, with cost overruns

and indifferent quality. Even then, the

commercial opportu nity may already be

gone and major replanning for the next

market event will be required. All of the

above factors tend to lead to higher than

average costs and lack of satisfaction. •

Those where the principal purpose of

construction is to deliver services (health

care, education). Clients in this group are

often in the The Role of the Client 141 public

sector or are in associated activities. While

cost performance and functionality are

generally the stated objectives, the service

sector generally has difficulty in

implementing objective measurement tools

for evaluation of the long-term ‘value’ of

constructed facilities. Thus, the initial cost is

most often used (and sometimes legislated)

as the project selection tool. Furthermore,

there may be civic or political pres sures to

make a significant physical ‘statement’ to the

community in the form of highly visible

projects, often leading to expensive monu

mentalism and excessive ownership costs.

While these projects some times manage to

be delivered within the original budget

parameters they are seldom seen as

satisfactory on the basis of the return on

investment. Finally, there are many clients

who seek essentially ‘standard’ offerings of

repetitive elements such as buried pipes,

streets, lighting, transmission towers, small

bridges, repairs or renovation to various

buildings or civil engineering works. The

purpose and performance of such elements

are not only well established but often

subject to highly prescribed construction and

operating procedures. Often such works are

undertaken as parts of larger systems, and

their individual features are not explicitly

linked to the overall system performance. In

turn, relating short-/long-term opera tional

performance of individual buildings or urban

systems to ownership cost is difficult, with

few total value assessment tools. Projects for

this customer group are generally acquired

on an initial cost basis, which sometimes

leads to future maintenance cost issues. In

summary, financial market forces and

supply–demand considerations clearly

influence the perception of value received.

However, different types of buyers of

construction goods and services display a

variety of selection criteria. Impact of

regulation It has been historically recognised

that building projects must be under taken

with due regard for the safety and security of

the immediate user as well as of the

community at large. Thus, most

governments have estab lished regulations

that set out minimum standards for

structural stabil ity, fire resistance, supply of

clean water and evacuation of wastes, access

and comfort. Beyond such minimal societal

values, there are many other characteristics

such as durability, energy efficiency, sound

insulation, quality of finishes, thermal and

moisture resistance, most requiring expert

understanding of building science. 142

Buildings, Culture and Environment Some

countries with more liberal laissez-faire

policies tend to keep regu lation of non-

essential characteristics to a minimum, in

the belief that less regulated markets are

economically more efficient and will deliver

to the customer the optimum product at the

best price through the com petitive process.

Such laissez-faire policies are

counterbalanced by the legal remedies

available to customers who have not

received expected value. Others tend to

believe that all constructed products are

inherently very complicated, creating

‘knowledge imbalance’ and placing most cus

tomers, who do not have the required

expertise, at a competitive disad vantage.

Under these circumstances, it is believed

that it is the role of the government to step

in with appropriate consumer protection

legislation (Barrett, 1998) ensuring that the

customer receives, in principle, a rea sonably

well performing prduct. Different levels of

regulation, inspection, enforcement,

licensing or pre qualification of suppliers and

insurance against defects have been tried in

various jurisdictions, depending on culture,

tradition and socio-economic beliefs.

Evidence indicates that very stringent

regulatory regimes with rigid enforcement

may create potentially safer and more

durable struc tures but do not necessarily

result in greater consumer satisfaction. After

all, compliance with regulations is mostly

invisible since structural insta bility, spread

of fire, poor ventilation or non-performing

plumbing systems are rare events. In the

industrial countries this minimal level of

building performance is generally taken for

granted. On the other hand, timely

completion, cost compliance with the

budget and the overall quality are all viewed

as important indicators of success of a

construction project, with the

environmental compatibility expected to

become an equally significant objective

(Ofori, 1992). Environmental issues have

been receiving public attention in most

countries, and numer ous measures have

been introduced to reduce pollution,

conserve certain resources and protect

natural ecosystems. Construction projects,

by their very nature, are resource intensive

and environmentally intrusive: hence they

are likely to be subject of increasing concern

at the policy level and by special interest

groups. In the case of large, special purpose

construction projects such as power plants,

irrigation canals, transmission lines or

transportation links, focused environmental

assessments are now carried out as a rule

and various ecologically compatible actions

are traded off against economic benefits.

While, in theory, such mechanisms bring the

environmental costs into the market-based

analysis, actual experience indicates that it is

a very complex decision process based on

consultation and negotiation, The Role of the

Client 143 opposing shorter-term defined

benefits of a project against long-term,

imperfectly known public/environmental

values. For general purpose projects, which

represent the majority of construction

volume, such onerous and lengthy processes

have been found, so far, to be excessive. In

these situations environmental compatibility

appears to be introduced through

progressive regulatory intervention in three

stages: (1) By the use of the best available

practice and technology, whereby the

purchaser can often obtain an improved

product that is less polluting or resource

intensive, at a better price. Several energy

conservation and/or resource recycling

measures now in place are perceived as win–

win strategies. This requires the supplier to

have access to current technology and the

appropriate skills to implement it. (2) By

shifting focus from the initial acquisition cost

of a project to the long-term total ownership

cost. Various environmentally compatible

solutions can thus be introduced without

reducing the overall eco nomic

attractiveness. This often requires changes

in corporate budg eting approaches and in

the organisational responsibility structure,

bringing together capital development and

operating interests. Finan cial assessment

tools such as lifetime costing are now

available, and government incentive

programmes have been used to create

greater consciousness of energy

conservation, pollution abatement and/or

reduction of waste. (3) By the introduction of

significant sustainability measures and prac

tices that are likely to increase the cost of

ownership. There has been much global

discussion on environmental threats and

values, but the only way such factors can be

introduced into market economies is

through mandatory and coordinated

government action. Few con struction

customers will voluntarily reduce their

competitive posi tion by incurring additional

costs. Few countries are willing to impose

additional expenses on their citizens for the

benefit of the global community. Thus,

general consensus and concerted action is

required to advance the cause of

sustainability in construction. Ex perience

has shown this can happen with urgent and

evident global danger from a specific source,

such as CFCs. With respect to the broader

issues of greenhouse gas emissions (where

construction is one of the principal

contributors) international allocation of

significant economic costs has yet to be

resolved. Sustainability factors are likely to

have very profound influence on

construction user–supplier relationships for

years to come because they 144 Buildings,

Culture and Environment reflect the full

spectrum of societal values. However,

because such meas ures are being

introduced top-down, mostly through the

regulatory process, there is little

understanding by the customers or the user

of how they may contribute to their specific

situation. This suggests a parallel need for

the introduction of grass-roots or bottom-up

approaches origi nating from customers and

users. Innovation Innovation is often

perceived as a source of new solutions

leading to enhanced client satisfaction,

particularly in areas such as sustainable

construction where traditional approaches

often lead to higher costs and uncertain

long-term results. There is a large amount of

construction technology available through

scientific papers, books, and manuals of best

practice. Most of it is non proprietary and

widely available, having been developed by

universities and research centres with

government funding. More recently,

relatively inexpensive communication

systems and general use of databases have

made these pools of knowledge even easier

to access. Yet, globally, con struction

customers are not getting the full benefit of

the existing tech nology. For instance, the

properties of concrete are sufficiently well

known to make it last for ever, and design

methods allow building under extreme

exposure such as deep-sea platforms or in

space, yet concrete continues to deteriorate

prematurely and structures fail under

predictable conditions. The deterministic

view, which states that construction

technology will automatically flow from its

sources to industry practitioners, who then

will provide their customers with improved

solutions, greatly oversimpli f ies the

challenges of knowledge transfer and

innovation. Johnson and Segura-Bonilla

(2001) analysed the issues linked to trans

ferring construction knowledge from

industrially developed countries to

developing areas. Their findings are equally

applicable to technology diffusion issues

within national systems of innovation in

industrial countries currently attempting to

increase the innovation intensity of their

construction industry. While there is ample

evidence that advanced technology can

enhance process and product innovation, it

often requires significant organisational and

relationship changes in the value-added

chain. In order to transform the encoded

knowledge of technology sources into the

tacit know-how of The Role of the Client 145

construction workers and professionals,

there must be a learning capac ity and a

deliberate management of knowledge.

Furthermore, the concept of systems of

innovation suggests that firms perform

better when they work closely with each

other in networks, exchanging ideas and

improve ments. They also rely on stable,

highly qualified work forces and on long term

supply relationships with their customers to

take advantage of new ideas and enhance

each other’s competitive position. However,

even more is needed to be innovative. A

sustained corporate strategy is needed to

gain competitive advantage through change

involving all employees and as well as

organisations in the supply chain. These

prerequisites are not typical of the

construction industry in industrially

advanced countries and are even less

available in developing countries. Innovation

means making significant changes in doing

business as well as taking risks. Construction

customers appear to be ambivalent towards

innovation, wanting higher overall

performance yet being unwill ing to share

the risks or to reward new approaches

(Chinyio et al., 1998; Toole, 1998).

Nevertheless, some sophisticated and

demanding purchasers of construction have

established profitable, often stable

relationships with innovative suppliers. Time

will tell how rapidly this becomes a general

practice. What do customers want? Several

surveys have been carried out since the early

1990s probing rela tionships between

construction customers and suppliers. Most

of this research has been carried out in the

United Kingdom and some in the United

States, though there is no suggestion that

these findings are rep resentative of other

national patterns. Chinyio et al. (1998)

looked at the needs of a representative

sample of some 40 of the United Kingdom’s

building clients and found that their top

priorities were: • functional product with a

flexible design, fit for occupier use; • timely

completion; and • value for money,

economical product with low maintenance

cost. Customers also indicated that they

want to be involved in the building process,

do not want surprises and have low

tolerance of risk. There was 146 Buildings,

Culture and Environment no significant

difference in the priorities of public, private

or developer clients. Furthermore, low initial

price, on its own, was not considered a

significant objective. This was confirmed by

Wong et al. (2000) in examining criteria used

for the selection of contractors on over 80

civil engineering and building projects in the

United Kingdom. While the tender price

remained an im portant factor, the ability to

complete on time and project management

that could cope with unanticipated problems

were judged critical. Value for money

emerged as the principal selection criterion,

although cus tomers also looked closely at

the managerial capability of builders, their

skill level, past experience of their key

personnel, their human resources and other

general indications of satisfactory

performance. In order to determine the

factors causing clients to undertake building

projects, Kometa and Olomalaiye (1997)

carried out in-depth interviews with senior

managers of a diverse group of public and

private clients and developers. The following

were identified as key drivers: • A need for

additional facilities: this requirement most

often arises from increasing pressure within

the client’s organisation until a deci sion to

proceed is made. • Economic benefit

motives: this is deemed more important for

devel opers who are in the business of

providing facilities but is also important for

public sector managers. Issues such as

corporate status/prestige, preferences of

executives and location were closely related

to the above. • Satisfying the ultimate user

or the tenant: this was ranked high by all

respondents. • Various other factors: such as

workers’ pressure for improved facilities or

social expectations of the organisation

(environmental issues) received lower

ranking. When some 300 recent American

homebuyers were surveyed regarding their

satisfaction (Torbica and Stroh, 2001), non-

financial ‘soft’ criteria emerged. This

customer group wanted a house with good

design and quality characteristics but also

expected service from the builder. In the last

category, builders were rated as being

relatively weak. The authors concluded: ‘It is

possible to have dissatisfied or at least not

satisfied, cus tomers even though explicit

time, cost, and performance criteria have

been met.’ The Role of the Client 147 What

do constructors want? If the above is what

the customers want from the builders, what

do the members of the construction team

want from their customers? Kometa et al.

(1994) investigated some of the qualities

that project consultants (architects and

engineers) expect of their clients. Not un

expectedly, consultants wanted clients to

have the financial resources to undertake

the project, to state their priorities clearly

and to have realis tic and feasible objectives.

They also felt that clients’ past performance

in procuring quality projects without cost

overruns and their internal organisation

were important contributors to the overall

success. A significant difficulty in discussions

between the clients and the builders

regarding the expected performance is the

paucity of known robust metrics that can

objectively describe functionality, flexibility,

comfort, serviceability and many other

factors that enter into the satisfaction

matrix. Capturing clients’ needs regarding

their cultural, social or envi ronmental

requirements is even more difficult since an

insufficient vocab ulary and few agreed

benchmarks exist in this area. The client and

the building process Large amounts of

research and documentation exist on the

building process itself but much less

information can be found on the role of the

client at the inception, during the

construction and in the post-delivery

commissioning stage. As indicated in the

previously mentioned survey by Torbica and

Stroh (2001), even in the situation of

relatively simple acquisition of a pre

constructed, single-family house, buyers

displayed a complex composite of

satisfaction with regard to design, quality

and service performance. The authors also

indicated that builders have become

increasingly concerned with consumer

preferences: ‘The biggest shift in the US

home building industry that has happened in

the last several years is that home builders

are extremely interested in gaining

consumer input. Satisfied consumers are

said to be the back bone of the home

building industry. Homebuilders have come

to realize that the ability to correctly assess

the desirability of their housing units and the

quality of service is crucial to their financial

viability....More knowledge about the

factors that are related to home buyers’

satisfac 148 Buildings, Culture and

Environment tion, or dissatisfaction, would

be an invaluable tool in achieving and

maintaining a competitive edge.’ When a

larger organisation decides to go ahead with

a building project, the situation is

considerably more complicated than in the

purchase of a house. Cherns and Bryant

(1984) suggested that that the design brief,

the specifi cations and the contractual

arrangements do not fully reflect what the

client really wants. In fact, when one looks

deeper into clients’ organi sation and the

decision process leading up to the selection

of a particular project, many internal

tensions remain unresolved when the ‘go

ahead’ signal is given. There is almost always

competition for scarce corporate f inancial

resources, and the ‘winning’ project often

leaves certain dissat isfied departmental or

individual ‘losers’ holding a grudge. Complex

organ isations also have elaborate internal

accountability structures, with some

departments having a more important stake

in the early completion, others in remaining

within the proposed budget, and still others

in the operating performance, the

appearance, the environmental

compatibility or the com munity acceptance

of the project. Several of these requirements

may be explicitly stated during the design

briefing and the construction planning, but

others only emerge later or remain implicit.

These implicit require ments form part of the

overall emerging client satisfaction pattern

at con struction completion as well as during

facility operation. More comprehensive

briefing processes, based on practices and

method ologies from the manufacturing

industries, could help (Kamara et al., 1999).

Elaborate approaches based in the client

requirements processing model (CRPM)

could capture the complete set of needs,

thus facilitating the communication of the

client’s demands to the builder. On the other

hand, Barrett and Stanley (2001) believe,

based on their research with industrial

partners, that better briefing is a ‘process

running through the construction project’

that consists of the following steps: • The

client becoming more knowledgeable and

having significant involvement in the

construction process. • The project team

becoming more stable and business-like in

manag ing constraints, work procedures,

assessment of needs, information

processing and feedback. • The user being

more involved in the project. In practice, it is

still not uncommon to hear from some

construction team members, when facing

changes in requirements, delays or new The

Role of the Client 149 expectations, that ‘the

client does not know what they want’ while

builders ‘just want to get on with the job’ and

deliver the project as rapidly as possible.

From the management structure

perspective, once a project is initiated, the

client and all the parties to the building

process (contractor, architect, consultants,

trades and various suppliers) form a new,

temporary, virtual, multi-organisational

(NTVMO) project team. In practice, what we

have facetiously called NTVMO is as

unwieldy as its acronym: it is new, with all

the problems of quickly moving up the

learning curve; it is temporary, therefore

participants have less shared commitment to

each other; it is virtual, and thus seldom

receives careful organisational design or con

f iguration of internal communication

channels; and it is multi organisational, with

the potential of competing agendas and

internal rivalry. Contractual arrangements of

the design–bid–build type can cause NTVMO

additional problems of functional and

physical separation between designers and

builders. While operating under these

conditions with the objective of rapidly plan

ning, designing and constructing a project,

NTVMO is expected not only to maintain

free-flowing internal communication

channels to resolve the ongoing issues, but

also to be linked to the client’s corporate

structure for supplementary requirements

needed to complete the work in a satisfac

tory manner. Using examples of successful,

well established, stable, carefully structured

and highly integrated industrial or public

organisations, management science

generally uncovers a high degree of trust

amongst employees and partners, an open

flow of communication and an ability to

anticipate and then satisfy the needs and

wants of customers. In comparison, NTVMO

almost appears to be created for

communication failure, and the con

struction team’s ability simply to complete

the project, against all odds, is mostly due to

the drive and the leadership of project

managers, who are somehow able to get the

commitment of various parties to work

together. It is not surprising that many

construction customers and suppliers

decided that there must be a better way to

build and/or achieve a satis factory outcome.

Two major trends have now emerged: •

Greater customer–supplier cooperation,

risk–reward sharing and lasting

relationships: this is achieved through

various forms of part nering, alliances, joint

ventures and other arrangements that bring

the parties to work together towards a

common goal. Bresnen and 150 Buildings,

Culture and Environment Marshall (2000)

confirmed that such collaborative

arrangements can have a positive influence

on a client’s satisfaction and that there was

a marked improvement in budget and

schedule compliance. Better quality, lack of

disruption, enhancement of safety and

resolution of disputes were also observed. •

Customers not wanting an involvement in

the construction process: these customers

only desire to purchase the use or the service

provided by constructed assets. This trend

finds its expression in various forms of

public–private partnership, build-own-

operate-transfer (BOOT) for mulae and other

forms of owner-builder projects. It appears

to be primarily applicable to projects of a

certain size, given the significant front-end

costs of preparation of the service proposal.

There are now several large, national and

even global firms that offer to finance, build

and operate hospitals, water treatment

plants, airports, highway systems, parking

garages and other types of facilities. In some

instances they may hold long-term leases

from the customer but often they will

operate under a concessionary

arrangement, with tolls or fees being used as

the source of earnings. Since such ventures

are frequently granted quasi-monopoly

status in the provision of certain services,

market forces may not be sufficient to

ensure user protection or satis faction. New

forms of balancing interests may have to be

introduced by government. There is also a

broader trend of looking at construction

projects from a community perspective. It

not just a question of what value they can

provide to the owners; increasingly there is

public scrutiny in terms of their

responsiveness to the spatial, cultural or

environmental needs of the society. In the

consultation process that takes place there is

a fine balance between these societal needs,

often represented by special interest groups,

and the economic pressures of timeliness

and value at reasonable price to the

consumer. Conclusions The global

competitive context for many industries is

increasingly based on delivering quality

products and services that create a high

degree of consumer satisfaction. In contrast,

the construction industry continues to

display significant underperformance in

terms of value, quality and time liness. There

are two facets to this industry. First, it is still

firmly based on craft traditions, which it is

likely will always be required to maintain the

existing stock of built assets. Second, the

quasi-manufacturing process The Role of the

Client 151 involves intricate supply chains,

advanced technology and rising per

formance expectations. Analysis of the role

of clients, and of other factors which guide

this more advanced facet of the building

process towards a satisfactory outcome,

displays a complex array of mutually

interrelated driving forces. The construction

industry has not taken full advantage of

limited run, computer assisted,

manufacturing techniques to produce more

high quality, customised products, nor to

understand the implications of matching

technological uses to customer

expectations. Given the pre dominance of

small firms in this industry, it will take

concerted action by major public and private

clients to implement activities required to

enhance performance. Furthermore, global

forces outside the purview of individual

clients, such as environmental concerns,

technology diffusion and innovation or avail

ability of investment capital at low cost,

powerfully influence this indus try.

Regulatory regimes to protect the safety and

the security of users and the community at

large further limit the ability of a client to

affect outcomes. Yet consumers and

suppliers must be convinced that such

regulatory measures improve and enhance

value, otherwise they would resist

introduction of new rules. For sustainability

concerns, where the cause–effect

relationship is not unequivocal, this remains

a challenge. However, there is still

considerable scope for customers to take

action, exercise their market power, and

insist on a relevant performance target.

When faced with the complex offerings of

the construction industry, pur chasers are

often not sufficiently knowledgeable or

sophisticated. They also suffer frequently

from the myopic view of making long-term

invest ments while looking at initial costs.

Buyers having greater understanding of

construction products and their market

characteristics/impacts could help them to

inform their long-term investments. Finally,

there is the role of clients in articulating their

needs and prefer ences to the construction

team responsible for their specific projects.

Organisational dynamics and

communication patterns within such virtual,

hastily assembled, temporary, multi-

organisational project team structures are

not conducive to coordinated action,

focused on achieving customer satisfaction.

There is growing awareness of performance

issues amongst major clients and some

construction companies. Two

complementary trends have emerged that

may have significant impact on the prevailing

practice: more 152 Buildings, Culture and

Environment stable coordinated customer–

supplier relationships within the building

process, and/or customers that wish only to

purchase the service provided through

constructed facilities without being directly

involved in the con struction or operation

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(1995) Best Practices Manual. CRINE

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Economics, 18, 767–774. 10 User Needs and

Expectations Adrian Leaman Introduction

Since the early 1990s, Building Use Studies

has carried out 150 studies of buildings,

mainly from the point of view of their

occupants, but also often including their

environmental and technical performance.

Some of these, the Probe studies, are in the

public domain, so it is possible to read about

them (Reference 1). Although most of the

buildings are in the UK, the basic methods

have been applied to others in Australia,

New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong

Kong, the Netherlands and the USA, and

there are more countries in the pipeline.

Inevitably, the question arises about global

similarities and differences, especially in

building users’ attitudes and preferences,

but also in com parisons between buildings

themselves. For example, British buildings

seem to be more ‘stressed’, with higher

occupation densities, more like lihood of

open plan layouts and an increasing

tendency to 24-hour/7-day operation.

Features in offices which occupants like

(such as lower densi ties, cellularisation,

natural light and controllability) seem to be

less common than they are in mainland

Europe. This might mean that British

buildings overall compare unfavourably, for

instance, with their European counterparts.

However, British buildings, at least from

their occupants’ perspective, seem to be

improving, albeit slowly. Sadly, mary of the

answers are unknown, partly because our

samples outside the UK are, as yet, too small.

There is also the thorny problem of

‘controlling for context’. Operating

circumstances are so different from one case

to the next that it is often impossible to be

sure that like is being compared with like.

The dilemma to avoid when comparing

buildings is User Needs and Expectations 155

to compare unlike with unlike. There is too

much ‘uncontrollable’ (in the statistical

sense) variation, and the data are thus too

‘noisy’ to be able to draw firm conclusions

from them. For example, building samples

from Australia and New Zealand tend to

show that Australasian buildings are

healthier, but this may be the result of a

healthier lifestyle along with more

opportunities for occupants to get away

from their desks and go outside during the

day rather than intrinsic physical differences

in the buildings themselves. User needs: the

wider picture As well as methodological

considerations, there is also the inherent

com plexity of buildings as total systems.

Figure 10.1 gives an idea of the kind of

complexity involved. The parts that are most

relevant to our subject matter here are: (1)

habits, needs, preferences; and (2) user

strategies. These refer to the likes and

behaviours of ‘ordinary’ building occupants

the people who use and work in buildings

every day, but usually have no active part in

designing or managing them. There are also

other classes of 9: Cultural perceptions of

risk and hazard 8. Social, technical and

environmental flux Externalities

Environment Environmental ...targeted 4.

Buildings 5. Wealth-producing processes 3.

Activities Strategies 6. Developmental

...suboptimising Resource use 7. Constraints

2. User ...satisticing or coping 1. Habits,

Needs, Preferences Fig. 10.1 The complexity

of buildings as total systems 156 Buildings,

Culture and Environment user, like facilities

managers and designers, who have different

percep tions of need and different ideas of

how to service them. Facilities man agers

tend to provide services on a ‘good enough’

basis; designers tend to oversimplify or

parody user needs (Reference 2). Almost all

occupants treat buildings as a means to an

end. Most are not really interested in design

or management matters. They want to carry

out their tasks and activities as easily and

effectively as possible. They just want to get

on with what they do with the least

inconvenience, usually to themselves. This is

the main reason why we repeatedly find that

building occupants say they are most

satisfied and productive when • thermal

conditions are perceived as comfortable and

relatively stable; and • there is rapid

response when things go wrong, not just in

the thermal conditions, but in all kinds of

ways, such as the speed and effective ness of

the help desk (if there is one) or the usability

and effectiveness of controls for, e.g. lights

and windows. Buildings which are both

thermally comfortable and have ‘rapid

response systems’ are almost invariably well

liked by occupants, even if the build ings

themselves are scruffy or architecturally

undistinguished. Habits, needs and

preferences are to some extent culturally

dependent. They are affected by attitudes to

health, safety, risk, and fashion as well as

regulations, and organisational and social

norms. In recent years, expec tations about,

for example, building-related health have

been rising rapidly, so conditions which were

tolerated a decade ago are now

unacceptable. Whatever the prevailing

norms, most building users have to accept

what they find as ‘givens’. This is why their

behaviour, with the occasional exception, is

‘coping’ or ‘satisficing’. They make the best

they can of things because they are rarely

able to create conditions which optimally

suit them. This applies even to those with

seemingly the most power senior managers,

for instance. Although they may be able to

commandeer the best locations for

themselves (e.g. offices with the best

window views at the top of the building),

they still rarely go as far as changing things

radically for the better. User Needs and

Expectations 157 As building performance

studies have found, most buildings (approxi

mately 90% in the UK) suffer from chronic

performance problems (e.g. overheating or

poor air quality) which ultimately affect

users’ health and productivity. As Fig. 10.1

shows, users’ needs and preferences are

(obviously) linked to user strategies which in

turn are connected to (3) Activities.

‘Activities’ in this case simply means the

collective tasks that are being carried out in

buildings – office, health, educational or

whatever. Users will be almost completely

preoccupied with carrying out tasks and

activities to the best of their ability. They will

often see the building as a hindrance to this,

and tend to take a negative view of it. Most

of the time they will not know or care about

the architecture, services or facilities

management. They take it as a ‘given’ that

the environment should support what they

have been tasked to do. Similarly, clients also

tend to assume that designers will

automatically provide them with a healthy,

safe, comfortable, flexible, energy efficient

and spacious environment. Referring again

to Fig. 10.1, activities are carried out within

(4) Buildings (meaning the enclosing physical

fabric and spaces), which themselves con

tribute to (5) Wealth-producing processes.

This is what buildings are for. Surprisingly,

this is often overlooked. Buildings are also

wealth-producing in terms of their role in

property and property-related investments.

In Britain, for example, their value as

property usually exceeds their ‘activity’

value. As well as their value in use and

exchange, the power of imagery must not be

forgotten. Again, image often trumps use

value. Despite what many designers think,

image is usually low on users’ priorities. Our

research has found that users are especially

suspicious of famous designers. Users tend

not to give famous designers the benefit of

any doubt that there might be about the

building’s image and the way it works in

practice. Users often think that too much

emphasis is given to how a building looks and

not enough to the way it functions and

supports users’ activities. They are usually

right. Buildings themselves are created by a

completely different set of decision making

processes to those used by normal

occupants, represented in Fig. 10.1 as (6)

Development strategies. These, of course,

have to operate within (7) Constraints (e.g.

the existing physical infrastructure, 158

Buildings, Culture and Environment planning

law and investment market, as well as time,

cost and quality criteria). Development

strategies gain utility by seeking out

perceived benefits (usually profit) within the

boundaries of the perceived constraints. This

is summarised in Fig. 10.1 as ‘sub-

optimising’, for want of a better term. To

complete the picture in Fig. 10.1, everything

connected in boxes 1–7 operates within a

background of (8) Social, technical and

environmental f lux (the volatility of

underlying change) and (9) Cultural

perceptions of risk and hazard (how local

cultures affect perceptions and behaviours).

The terminology of hazard perception comes

from cultural geography based on life-and-

death fundamentals. For example, risks of

inundation by f lood help to explain why the

modern integrated urban planning and trans

port systems in the Netherlands are second

to none in the world. Over coming the threat

of winter cold is vital to survival in

Scandinavia, so more attention is devoted in

Scandinavia to ventilation, comfort and the

indoor environment and, perhaps,

commensurately less elsewhere. In our

(limited) experience with buildings outside

Britain, the Dutch seem both to get the

basics right and integrate well across

disciplines. Ventilation strategies are

obviously important in cold-climate

countries, which may help to explain why

Scandinavian understanding of ventilation

seems to be so well developed. Cultural

imperatives like these help set objectives,

often non-negotiable, because they are

‘embedded’. No doubt readers will be able to

think of examples from their own cultures.

The British, for instance, seem to be

historically fixated with their own political

and cultural independence, and threats to it,

real or imagined. Such traits are not causes

as such, but form a backcloth to decision

making and behaviour. This is often

‘invisible’ from within the culture but more

obvious to outsiders; even so, it is still hard

to pin down. It is often difficult to escape

from cries of ‘determinism’ when discussing

cultures and the environment. Any doubters

should revisit Rapoport’s classic (1969)

anthropological study House Form and

Culture (Reference 3), one of the few

successful attempts to understand

comparative cultures and buildings. Social,

technical and environmental flux in Fig. 10.1

represents the volatil ity of change, including

innovation, government regulation, physical

change, social mores and political systems,

all of which can affect build ings and their

use, but often unpredictably. Particular

things assume global importance, viz.

climate change and energy efficiency, but

others, User Needs and Expectations 159

especially national regulations, may be just

as significant in their own way. For example,

the human and environmental performance

of German office buildings may have been

considerably improved by building

regulation restrictions on depth of space.

Buildings are susceptible to unpredictable

events which have have unseen effects: for

instance, the sudden obsolescence of 1980s

London office buildings that were unable to

incorporate raised floors for cabling because

f loor-to-ceiling heights were too shallow.

However, other fashion and cultural

perceptions were also at work, which

included: • letting agents’ preferences,

which at that time tended towards variable

air volume (VAV) air conditioning which

needed more headroom despite the

availability of fan coils which did not; and •

developers, who sometimes liked to declare

buildings obsolete because redevelopment

allowed them to increase plot ratios. There

are many more examples where real

outcomes are not just a result of design

intent or rational user requirements, but a

much more profound mixture of culture,

social change and background constraints

operating together in a unique brew with

liberal dashes of chance added. What does

Fig. 10.1 say about user needs and

expectations? The main point is that the

context for users is not really linked to the

physical ‘building’ variables at all; it is

dominated by what might be called the

‘behavioural’ variables on the right-hand

side of the diagram. Users give highest

importance to: • the activities or tasks in

which they are primarily engaged; and •

their preferences, which have a firm cultural

basis (but there are also other factors like

physiology which can be predicted

independently of culture). This is a polite

way of saying that most users don’t really

care very much about buildings and their

architecture. Four strategies Figure 10.2

considers context from a designer’s

perspective. ‘Physical’ and ‘behavioural’ are

used in the same sense as just described for

Fig. 10.1. ‘Context-free’ refers to principles,

rules and processes that may be applied 160

Buildings, Culture and Environment Physical

A Fit and forget Make invisible Context free

Systems operating in the background

normally without intervention Policy,

legislation, ethics and value systems Make

habitual B Implement and manage Make

usable Systems requiring regular attention

and/or interaction Adaptation to

unpredictable changes, individual needs and

competitive threats Make acceptable

Implement and internalise C Fig. 10.2

Comparative design strategies Risk and

freedom D Behavioural Context dependent

anywhere irrespective of context. ‘Context-

dependent’ are factors locally determined.

The two-by-two matrix of Fig. 10.2 gives four

quadrants, implying four design strategies: •

Make invisible– those things which are

supposed to work only in the background

with little or no human intervention. • Make

usable– things needing regular attention

and/or interaction. Importantly, this is linked

into management culture and occupier

convenience. • Make habitual– formal and

informal rules which help with safe

comfortable and smooth running. This is

more a matter for individuals. • Make

acceptable– things which are not prescribed

and covered by the rules but allow scope for

individuality, innovation and change. Our

evidence shows that the best buildings tend

to perform well in all four quadrants. For

example, buildings which can properly be

said to be f lexible and adaptable will have

included consideration of all four strate User

Needs and Expectations 161 gies somewhere

in the briefing, design and operations

thinking. This includes issues such as

usability, innovation, habit (i.e. cultural

norms in the organisation and user

etiquette), safety, security, risk, value and

uncertainty. More generally: • Technology

which is intended to work ‘in the

background’ really does, so there is no need

for constant management vigilance. • Where

there is need for intervention, interfaces are

easy for users to understand, and give clear

feedback about their operating status (i.e.

whether or not they are working) and their

effects (i.e. what change has been induced).

• Users may override systems, so they

always have other options, especially in

emergencies. • The system has enough

‘degrees of freedom’, ‘carrying capacity’ or

‘redundancy’ to cope with unpredictable

change (e.g. unexpected increase in

occupant densities). • As a result, the

building is perceived as flexible and/or

adaptable. • Because of the intrinsic

adaptiveness of the system users are more

likely to tolerate the flaws that will inevitably

exist – they do not feel that the building is

forcing them to do things against their will or

best interests. However, the modern

tendency is to push as many things as

possible into Quadrant A (fit and forget) and

leave the consequences of leakage back into

the other three for someone else to worry

about. Unfortunately for us all, side effects

cannot be forgotten, even if they are not

immediately foreseeable or included in cost–

benefit equations or risk–value payoff

calculations. Globalisation (the context-free,

left-hand part of the diagram) occupies

quadrants A and C: a combination of ‘fit and

forget’ and ‘implement and internalise’ – a

one-size-fits-all, minimum redundancy

approach. This suits a market- and supply-

chain-led vision of building provision, but is

inappropriate on the demand side, especially

in dealing with rapid change, local

differences, capacity shifts and locational

preference changes. The exceptions are

those relatively rare circumstances where

user require ments are predictable or

relatively simple (as in hotel guest rooms, for

example). 162 Buildings, Culture and

Environment From the user needs

perspective (see Fig. 10.2) the following

observations arise: (1) Quadrant A (fit and

forget) implies that many building functions

should properly operate in the background

so that the normal user is never aware of

them (e.g. structural integrity, fire

protection, comfort provision, health and

safety provision, ergonomics). However, it is

not appropriate to try to place all functions

here by, for example, automation or

excessive provision of computer-assisted

‘intelligence’ or standardisation. (2) B

(implement and manage) covers those

aspects of buildings where user or

management intervention is required and

necessary, as with, for example, adaptive

comfort control through usable controls, or

understandable building management

system (BMS) computer interfaces. (3) C

(implement and internalise) includes aspects

of user behaviour which ideally need to be

habitual (that is, carried out without undue

thought), including, for example, response to

fire alarms, etiquette in the use of space and

respect for colleagues’ preferences. (4) D

(risk and freedom) – so named after John

Adams’ (1998) book [Ref erence 4] – covers

all those aspects of buildings that cannot be

legis lated for or easily anticipated in the

design. This includes unexpected

innovations, unusual behaviours, emerging

uses, unusual or bizarre circumstances and

improbable coincidences. Situations may or

may not be risky and/or dangerous. People

adjust their reactions and behaviour to cope

with the circumstances. ‘Common sense’ is

the byword here. Emergence A further

aspect within Fig. 10.1 and Fig. 10.2 is

‘emergence’. Buildings are usually more or

less the sum of their parts. When the parts

comple ment each other properly, the

interacting system creates virtuous out

comes which are often delightful to

experience and use. Outcomes depend on

whether designers understand and utilise

the governing constraints to best effect and,

subsequently, whether the occupants can

manage the building effectively and adapt

requirements to it without being unduly

hobbled by unnecessary costs or

inefficiencies. Excellence in design con jures

away onerous constraints (like an

inhospitable site or inclement local climate)

and makes them seemingly irrelevant to the

user. They are still there, of course. User

Needs and Expectations 163 In reality,

constraints tend to be both more mundane

and less easy to perceive – cost and time are

the main ones, vanity and corporate egos are

amongst the others. The best buildings from

the users’ perspective are not necessarily the

most architecturally appealing, but

comfortable, con venient and capable of

rapid response when things go wrong.

Astute build ing management can turn

otherwise unprepossessing buildings into a

pleasure to use by exercising simple

strategies that are understood by all and

easy to implement, like ‘keep as new’.

People like buildings that can support the

activities that they carry out with minimal

fuss and without getting in the way too

much. Such buildings do not have to be

aestheti cally outstanding, although this can

help to make them more forgiving of

shortcomings though, in our experience, not

much. Indeed, these very attributes can

become a source of irritation. Depressingly,

it is more common with modern buildings (at

least in our experience in the UK) to

experience emergence of the unwanted

kind: chronic performance failures, such as

overheating and noise, and waste like poor

energy efficiency; and worse – sick buildings,

or irredeemable vandalism, for example.

Trying not to sound too pessimistic, it is

much more common to find occupiers who

are struggling to overcome the user and

management problems caused by chronic

faults. In the extreme cases, like St John’s

House, an office building in Bootle, UK, the

end result was demolition (in late 2001).

Although this was widely attributed to ‘sick

building syndrome’ the strategic cause was

most probably the mismatch between what

the building demanded to keep it healthy

and what its management was prepared to

provide. Although designers may think they

are able to predict and control emer gent

properties, in reality it is much more hit and

miss. Even when an excellent building has

been achieved, it is hard to repeat the

success. The mix of variables – physical and

process – will never be copied twice over so

it almost pointless to try and duplicate the

exercise with exactly the same formula. Even

so, people want to know what the formula is.

Fig. 10.3 lists some of the factors for success

at the Elizabeth Fry Building, University of

East Anglia, UK. Figure 10.4 is a summary of

guidelines which help set preconditions for

encouraging good emergent qualities. The

special emphasis that needs to be given to

specific aspects will vary with culture. For

example, the author and his colleagues have

examined low-energy buildings in the UK and

Sweden. While there are many quan titative

similarities, it seems that higher levels of

robustness, efficiency and build quality are

more routinely delivered in Sweden, with

less effort from clients and designers. The

reason may be connected with require

ments for better air-tightness, given the

winter conditions, plus better attention to

design detail and lower occupant densities.

164 Buildings, Culture and Environment •

Acommitted client • Abrief with clear targets

• Ateam which has worked together on the

site • Specialist support (e.g. on fabric

insulation and air-tightness) • Arobust

design, efficiently serviced • Enough time

and money • An appropriate specification

(and not too clever) • An interested

contractor (and a traditional contract) • Well

built with attention to detail • Well

controlled (but only eventually after

monitoring) • Post-handover support

(triggered by independent monitoring) •

Management vigilance Fig. 10.3 Factors for

success observed in the construction of the

Elizabeth Fry Build ing, University of East

Anglia (Source: Reference 5) Findings from

user studies At a more practical level, our

research has revealed a consistency in user

needs. Building Use Studies’ current dataset

has 124 buildings, of which 18 are from

outside the UK (Reference 9). The last 50

surveyed in the UK/Ireland are used for

benchmarking. For the UK/Ireland dataset,

the general findings are listed below: •

Productivity, health and satisfaction

variables are almost always linked to

comfort – the better occupants think the

indoor environment is, the more likely

people will say that they are productive,

healthy and happy: see Fig. 10.5 (similar

graphs can be shown for e.g. comfort and

perceived health). • People usually say they

perform better when they have relatively

more control over the heating, cooling,

ventilation, noise and lighting in their

immediate vicinity (often in that order of

importance). • If control is not available to

occupants through physical means (e.g.

window blinds and radiator controls), then it

usually can be made up for by proactive,

rapid, or, (in the absence of anything else)

honest responses from friendly, diligent

facility management staff, and by excellent

design and technical performance. This will

provide a sub stitute, so control will seldom

need to be exercised. However, at least in

the UK, this level of excellence is seldom

achieved owing to various cultural and

market factors. • People want things that are

usable, manageable and work well for them

on demand or without holding them up too

much or getting in the way of their task in

hand. Despite what designers think, nice

looking working environments tend to be

lower down occupants’ priority lists. User

Needs and Expectations 165 • Process

before Product • Product and back to

Process • Passive before Active • Simple

before Complicated • Better before More •

Prevention before Cure • 80 before 20 •

Robust before Fragile • Self-managing

before Managed • Efficient before Elaborate

• Intelligible before Intelligent • Usable

before Alienating • Forgiving before

Demanding • Assets before Nuisances • Off

before On • Experience before Hope •

Thought before Action • Horses before Carts

Fig. 10.4 Guidelines for encouraging good

emergent qualities (Source: Reference 6)

166 Buildings, Culture and Environment 12.5

10 Productivity % Bmk 7.5 5 2.5 0–2.5–5–

7.5–10–12.5–2–1.5–1–.5 © Building Use

Studies 2002 .5 AC NonAC 0 1 2 1.5 BUS

Comfort Index Fig. 10.5 Correlation of

productivity and occupant comfort •

Naturally ventilated buildings can give

surprisingly good results, mainly where there

is simple, good and effective user control,

even where the conditions are objectively

less good than in many air conditioned

environments. The downside is that ‘over-

stressed’ natu rally ventilated buildings (such

as those that are too deep in plan form, too

densely occupied, or with limited or

idiosyncratic user control) can produce

dreadful conditions, especially in the height

of summer. In Fig. 10.5, the most

comfortable and productive buildings (top

right) are naturally ventilated, but so too are

the worst. • The more functions and

activities people have to cope with, the less

likely they are to say they are productive as

well. So open plan often scores worse simply

because the number of activities is greater.

The potential for unmanageable conflicts is

also higher (there are always exceptions,

though). • Noise is a bugbear, especially with

random distractions created by activities

which are perceived as irrelevant to a

particular individual’s requirements. This,

obviously, is worse in open-plan

environments. These generalisations can

also be presented as the aspects of buildings

which people prefer. Readers will know most

of the answers from their own experiences

of buildings. The following list is adapted

from the Probe studies [Reference 7]. High

occupant satisfaction is easier to achieve

when all or most of the following features

are present in the total system (because they

help User Needs and Expectations 167

virtuous processes develop and/or give

occupants better control, which ultimately

improves their tolerance). These include: •

shallower plan forms and depths of space

(usually less than 15m across the building) •

degrees of cellularisation (not necessarily in

single-person spaces, but at least laid out so

that workgroup integrity is preserved) •

thermal mass • absence of gratuitous glazing

• stable and comfortable thermal conditions

• absence of distracting noise (what

constitutes this varies greatly with context) •

controlled background ventilation without

unwanted air infiltration • openable

windows • views out • usable controls and

interfaces • anon-sedentary workforce

(people are sitting at e.g. VDUs all day long)

• predictable occupancy patterns • well

informed, responsive and diligent

management • places to go at break times

inside or away from the building Published

examples of buildings which meet most of

these criteria with high levels of excellence

are the Elizabeth Fry Building, Norwich, UK

[Reference 1] and the Tax Office, Enschede,

Netherlands [Reference 1], both in the Probe

series. The tendency for things to become

unmanageable, and thus for occupants’

tolerance to decline, can be made worse by

some or all of the following: • Deeper plan

forms with variable qualities of indoor

conditions (e.g. worse towards the middle,

better towards the windows). • Senior staff

monopolising the best places, often also

leaving them unoccupied while others have

to suffer. • Areas in use for staff

workstations which were not originally

intended to be so (e.g. converted storage

areas, basements and meeting rooms). 168

Buildings, Culture and Environment • Large

open work areas with little variety in them. •

Larger workgroups (above about six people).

• Workgroups where people are not sitting

within line of sight and earshot of each

other, perhaps with people split between

different locations. • People sitting too close

to sources of noise and random distraction

like entrance/exit doors, kitchens,

photocopiers and touchdown areas. •

People sitting with their backs to colleagues

or circulation areas. • Too many conflicting

activities in one area (especially where

people needing to concentrate are mixed in

with people needing to commu nicate

frequently). • Higher densities (tolerance

thresholds differ in various parts of the world

so there is no rule of thumb). • Longer

working hours. • Presence of complex

technology. • Ineffective, absent or bossy

facilities management. The best results are

usually obtained where the indoor

environmental conditions are perceived as

comfortable, stable and predictable, but

when things go wrong (not just with the

ambient conditions but with other things as

well like office equipment or furniture

failures) there is a rapid and effective

response system in place. This can be

empowered individu als using their initiative

and common sense (e.g. with window and

blind controls which they can operate

themselves), or a management system

which works properly. Rapid response is the

key: it must be present some where in the

total system, ideally both in the physically

designed com ponents and in the

management systems. Anything that

prevents rapid response happening in

practice will reduce perceived performance.

Wider implications What have we learned

that helps improve buildings worldwide and

transfer some of these findings between

cultures? Fig. 10.6 comes from overview

papers on the Probe post-occupancy studies

(Reference 8). It has nine sub-headings,

three each under the main headings at the

top: ‘Ends’, ‘Linking tools (feedback)’ and

‘Means’. This is intended to help organise

briefing, feedback and design responses, so

that emphasis is put in the right places. User

Needs and Expectations 169 Ends What are

buildings for? Strategy first Establish the

essentials Targets are always moving The

public interest: health, safety and social

benefits The triple bottom line: people

business, environment Linking tools How

does feedback make things better? Keep

hold of reality Share your experiences Means

Are responses realistic and practical? Get

real about context Own problems, don't hide

them Adopt open-source data Methods of

linking clients, service providers and

regulation to improve understanding,

products and services within flux of socio-

technical change. Wealth-producing

processes Added value: delight Less can be

more Agendas for: • designers and

providers of buildings and components •

providers of outsourced services Fig. 10.6

Overview of briefing, feedback and design

responses The current emphasis on means

(on the right-hand side) almost always

swamps ends and feedback. This is not

necessarily a problem in a stable situation

where the buildings routinely being

delivered suit the occupiers’ requirements –

as seems to occur quite routinely in

Scandinavia, for instance – but causes major

difficulties in the UK, where research has

revealed quite large mismatches. Ends:

strategy first As building procurement,

design and delivery is a complex and time

consuming process, people often forget

what buildings are for. They then f ind it

difficult to evaluate what they end up with

because they are uncer tain about the

evaluation criteria. The best buildings (for

occupants, investment potential and

environmental performance) tend to be

those where targets are always made clear in

a brief which is understandable by all the

players, users and occupants included. A

clear brief also makes it much easier to test

the building in use to see if the expectations

have been met. When the brief is muddled,

we find that needs and expectations become

conflated and people develop unreal istic

expectations of what the new building will

do. When this happens, the client will always

be disappointed because expectations have

not been managed properly, partly because

no-one really knows what problem the 170

Buildings, Culture and Environment building

was supposed to be the answer to in the first

place. However, one cannot just prepare a

brief and go away; indeed, many briefs

prepared like this focus on means rather

than ends anyway. As a design develops, so

does the dialogue between client

requirements and the solutions being

offered, so the brief has to evolve. Ends:

establish the essentials When thinking about

the requirements for new buildings, clients

tend to forget about – or (rightly) assume

that the professionals will deliver – the

obvious, e.g. basic comfort, air-tightness and

energy efficiency. In the brief, the essentials

need to be clearly established, not just wish

lists of desir ables. Almost invariably, well

defined baseline requirements will help to

produce virtuous outcomes elsewhere in the

system. Most vitally, ‘don’t procure what

you can’t manage’: that is, do not create a

building which is beyond the occupying

organisation’s skills and resources. Ends:

targets are always moving Increasingly,

targets are not just on the physical side of

the building, but on the human. In the UK,

there is constant cost pressure to increase

den sities, reduce ‘churn’ and cut facilities

management (FM) budgets. This can be risky

because higher densities increase the

chances of functional conflicts (in e.g. open-

plan offices), lower costs often mean

excessive ‘reverse engineering’ like fewer

user controls (important for perceived

productivity), and lower (or contracted out)

FM inputs can mean lower response times.

On the other hand, pressures (e.g. scarcity of

skilled staff) can mean that buildings are

used as lures to attract staff. Issues such as

density and capacity are especially

important where staff numbers are volatile

and there are few other options for planners

(e.g. alternative locations). Linking tools:

keep hold of reality For some years we have

advocated design brief management (which

was run as a post-graduate course at the

University of York from 1996 to 1998 at the

Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies)

as a way of keeping a grip on reality in what

otherwise can become a myopic process. By

giving the client control over brief

management, keeping performance under

review through regular reality checks and

constantly reviewing outcomes User Needs

and Expectations 171 against expectations,

there is a greater chance of success,

especially for the end-user. But to date few

clients give someone the explicit responsi

bility of Design Brief Manager. It often gets

absorbed within a project man agement

activity which focuses on means (particularly

resources, cost and time), takes short cuts

and ends up losing sight of ends. Linking

tools: share your experiences This is one of

the weakest areas in the construction

industry: the ability to both learn on the job

and share experiences, for good or ill. The

Probe project (Probe, 1995–2002) is one of

only a handful worldwide that have placed

findings from studies of building

performance into the public domain so that

clients, managers and designers can learn

from the ex periences. Probe has not

emerged from the professions, government

agen cies or design practices, but from a

group of small consultancies linked with a

publisher, part-funded by government. In

the UK, there are many more who advocate

post-occupancy evaluation than actually

carry it out, presumably because they

perceive the risks to be greater than the

benefits. Linking tools: adopt open source

data Meaningful feedback is impossible

without comparable data. In the UK,

professions still have different ways of

measuring space in buildings (even though

standards are set down by the RICS), which

makes it doubly difficult to compare and

calibrate. Similarly, there are no de facto

methods of consistently measuring,

assessing and reporting, for example, energy

and water consumption (energy may

improve within the next few years following

a European Union Directive on the energy

certification of build ings). It is not just

measurement that is the problem, but

classification and coding. In the studies

described earlier, we are beginning to

overcome the open source data problem by

licensing arrangements. Means: get real

about context With buildings, context is

everything. It is vital to understand the influ

ences of the ruling constraints, resources,

their relative risks and the opportunities

they present. One of the more fruitless

activities of build ing research is to make

constraints vanish either by controlling for

them in simulations or in the laboratory, or

by trying to normalise data to fit assumption

sets. A ‘real-world’ approach (Reference 10)

has many virtues, 172 Buildings, Culture and

Environment one of which is that the

richness of context shines through. Treat

context as a feature, not a bug. Means: own

problems, don’t hide them This is also about

realism in problem solving and decision

taking. What are the tasks for the

professionals and the occupiers’

management, and what can reasonably be

left to individual users? For example, noise in

offices falls across all three, and often

becomes chronic because no-one has

properly ‘owned’ the problem during design,

handover and first occu pation/snagging.

Unwanted noise in a building in use is often

a symptom of poor design-team and

management integration, especially with

respect to, for example, telephones and

computers (often a source of noise, but

often not part of the decision making in a fit

out). Means: less can be more This is the

renowned design dictum: seek simplicity,

make intrinsically efficient options the

essential features, and beware of excessive

techno logical complexity creating

unnecessary and unwanted burdens for

users and managers. Conclusions This

chapter has pulled together some of the

threads of understanding user needs and

preferences, drawing on evidence from

mainly British-sourced studies, and has

pointed to some strategic possibilities. The

best buildings from the users’ point of view

are usually perceived as comfortable, safe

and healthy, with the intrinsic capability to

respond rapidly when things go wrong or

need to be changed. More often than not,

the time dimension, especially

responsiveness, seems to be just as impor

tant to the user as space. For example, if

people spend too much time getting from

place to place in the building, or the lifts have

too much dwell time, then they will complain

about it. They particularly dislike not being

able to adjust or adapt conditions to suit

their comfort prefer ences, especially when

the requirement is seemingly trivial (e.g. the

ability to move a VDU screen out of the glare

of sunlight). As long as users have enough

space, usable furniture and the layout does

not interfere too User Needs and

Expectations 173 much with what they want

to do, then they say remarkably little about

the architectural or interior features. Users

also do not like buildings or features that

make them look stupid in the eyes of their

peers. Overly pretentious or silly imagery

(such as might be found in more ‘way-out’

modern workplaces) or intrusive technology

(such as uncontrollable external blinds or

automatic lighting systems which cannot be

overridden) are almost always disliked.

Wastefulness is also frowned on (users – at

least in the UK – do not like conspicuous

waste or unnecessary extravagance). They

like buildings which support them and what

they have to do, not ostentatious corporate

or designer gestures. This information has

been assembed mainly from questionnaires

using a ‘real-world research’ approach

(Reference 10 and Fig. 10.7). Building per

formance studies do not thrive well in a

‘normal science’ research frame work

because: • buildings are rarely viewed as

‘total’ human and physical systems, usually

because this perspective does not map

properly onto academic disciplines or

government research agendas; • hypothesis-

testing usually fails in the face of multivariate

complexity (where it is hard to pin down

cause and effect, and contexts change from

case to case); • research findings are often

too far removed from the practical needs of

users, clients, designers and managers.

Examining how people behave (what they do

in response to real circum stances) works

better than studies of normative

requirements (that is, what people might do,

or ought to do, given certain circumstances).

The Building Use Studies approach is to stick

to known facts about actual events. As well

as difficulties with research and

methodology, there is too great a divide

between the goals and perspectives of the

supply side of the con struction industry and

the demand side. Clients are still too gullible.

They often do not really know what they are

procuring, especially the human costs and

consequences, but also the hidden costs of

unnecessary com plexity and the extra

management required to keep things

running smoothly. The bottom line for many

is usually about improving working

conditions so that people respond positively

and productively in their work. Our research

suggests that perceived occupant

productivity is reduced by about 20% in the

worst buildings and improved by about 15%

in the best – a difference of 35% between

best and worst. However, only about one-

third of the studied buildings have occupants

who report productivity gains (Reference

10). So there is still a big job to be done to

get the basics right. 174 Buildings, Culture

and Environment Solving problems rather

than Just gaining knowledge Predicting

effects rather than Finding causes Getting

large effects rather than Relationships

between variables Looking for robust rather

than Assessing statistical results and

significance actionable factors Developing

and rather than Developing and testing

testing programmes, theories interventions,

services etc. Field rather than Laboratory

Outside organisation rather than Research

institution Strict time and cost rather than As

much time or finance constraints as the

project needs Often generalist rather than

Typically highly researchers specialised

researchers Litttle use of ‘true’ rather than

Much use of ‘true’ experiments experiments

Multiple methods rather than Single

methods Oriented to the client rather than

Oriented to academic peers Viewed as

dubious by rather than High academic

prestige many academics Fig. 10.7 Real-

world research approaches User Needs and

Expectations 175 Building users already

know this. They don’t like gratuitous design

ges tures or tokenism; they just want modest

environments that are pleasant enough for

them and do not get in the way too much of

what they have to do. This is true the world

over. References 1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6

1.7 1.8 1.9 The Probe post-occupancy studies

were published in Building Services Journal

(BSJ) from 1997 to 2002. For a full list of

Probe publications and downloads follow

the Probe menu item in

www.usablebuildings.co.uk P. Ruyssevelt,

W. Bordass and R. Bunn, Probe – Post-

occupancy review of building engineering,

BSJ 14–16 (July 1995). W. Bordass and A.

Leaman, Probe 1: Tanfield House, BSJ 38–41

(Septem ber 1995). M. Standeven, R. Cohen

and W. Bordass, Probe 2: 1 Aldermanbury

Square, BSJ 29–33 (December 1995). M.

Standeven, R. Cohen and W. Bordass, Probe

3: Cheltenham & Gloucester Chief Office, BSJ

31–34 (February 1996). R. Asbridge and R.

Cohen, Probe 4: Queens Building, de

Montfort University, BSJ 35–41 (April 1996).

M. Standeven and R. Cohen, Probe 5: Cable

& Wireless College, BSJ 35–39 (June 1996).

M. Standeven, R. Cohen and A. Leaman,

Probe 6: Woodhouse Medical Centre, BSJ

35–39 (August 1996). W. Bordass, A. Leaman

and J. Field, Probe 7: Homeowners Friendly

Society, BSJ 39–43 (October 1996). R. Cohen,

A. Leaman, D. Robinson and M. Standeven,

Probe 8: Queens Building, Anglia Polytechnic

University, BSJ, 27–31 (December 1996). W.

Bordass, R. Cohen and M. Standeven, Probe

9: Energy and Engineering Technical Review,

BSJ, 37–41 (April 1997). 1.10 A. Leaman,

Probe 10: Occupancy Survey Analysis, BSJ,

37–41 (May 1997). 1.11 M. Standeven, R.

Cohen, W. Bordass and A. Leaman, Probe 11:

John Cabot City Technology College, BSJ 37–

42 (October 1997). 1.12 M. Standeven, R.

Cohen, W. Bordass and A. Leaman, Probe 12:

Rotherham Magistrates’ Court, BSJ 25–30

(Dec 1997). 1.13 M. Standeven, R. Cohen, W.

Bordass and A. Leaman, Probe 13: Charities

Aid Foundation, BSJ 33–39 (February 1998).

1.14 M. Standeven, R. Cohen, W. Bordass

and A. Leaman, Probe 14: Elizabeth Fry

Building, BSJ 37–41 (April 1998). 1.15 A.

Leaman and W. Bordass, Probe 15:

Productivity in buildings: The Killer Variables,

BSJ, 41–43 (June 1998). 1.15 B.R. Bunn,

Probe feedback, BSJ 44 (June 1998). 1.16 W.

Bordass, R. Cohen, A. Leaman and M.

Standeven, Probe 16: Marston Book

Services, BSJ 27–32 (August 1998). 176

Buildings, Culture and Environment 1.17 W.

Bordass, R. Cohen, A. Leaman and M.

Standeven, Probe 17: Co operative Retail

Services HQ, BSJ 37–42 (Oct 1998). 1.18 W.

Bordass, R. Cohen, A. Leaman and M.

Standeven, Probe 18: Portland Building, BSJ

35–40 (January 1999). 1.19 Probe 19:

Designer feedback, BSJ 35–38 (March 1999).

R. Bunn, Real-world solutions, BSJ 27–32

(Aoril 1997). Special Report: Probe 3 (BSJ 18–

20 December 1999) 1.20 R. Cohen, J. Field

and A. Leaman, Probe 20: Barclaycard

headquarters, BSJ 37–42 (Mar 2000). 1.21

The Probe Team, Probe 21: Orchard Learning

Resources Centre, BSJ 35–40 (July 2000).

1.22 R. Cohen, W. Bordass, J. Field, A.

Leaman and R. Bunn, Probe 22: Enschede Tax

Office, BSJ 51–56, (November 2001). 1.23

The Probe Team, Probe 23: Centre for

Mathematical Sciences, BSJ June 2002. 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10. Usability is covered in more

detail in Leaman A. (2000) Usability in build

ings: the Cinderella subject. Building

Research and Information, 28 (4), 296–300.

Rapoport, A. (1969) House Form and Culture,

First published 1980. Prentice Hall, London.

Adams, J. (1985) Risk and Freedom: the

record of road safety legislation, London

Transport Publishing Projects, London.

Bordass, W., Leaman, A. and Ruyssevelt P.

(2001) Assessing building per formance in

use 5: conclusions and implications. Building

Research and Information, 29, (3), March–

April 153. Bordass, W.: first used in client

presentation, 1996. Cited in Reference 11.

Leaman, A. and Bordass, W. (2001) Assessing

building performance in use 4: the Probe

occupant surveys and their implications.

Building Research and Information 29 (2),

129–143. Bordass, W., Leaman, A. and

Ruyssevelt, P. (2001) Assessing Building Per

formance in Use 5: conclusions and

implications. Building Research and

Information, 29, (3), March–April, 154.

Robson, C. (1993) Real-world Research: a

resource for social scientists and

practitioner-researchers. Blackwell, London.

Leaman, A. (2002) Productivity

improvement. Chapter 19 of Building in

Value: pre-design issues (eds R. Best and G.

deValence), Volume 3, UTS Sydney. Some of

the papers cited here may be downloaded

from www.usablebuildings.co.uk 11

Historical and Cultural Influences on Comfort

Expectations Gail S. Brager and Richard J. de

Dear Introduction There is often a strong,

mutually dependent relationship between

tech nological development and social and

cultural expectations, with each having the

potential to inform and shape the other. This

chapter focuses on how the introduction of

air-conditioning technology has dramatically

influenced attitudes about comfort and

building design. The important influences of

advertising and building standards are

critically examined as examples of

information exchange that have affected this

relationship between air-conditioning

technology and user expectations. The

specific case of the rise of air-conditioning

raises further questions for building

professionals on the use and transfer of

technological information, espe cially when

crossing regional and cultural boundaries.

What is comfort, and why is it important to

examine it? The answer is complex and will

vary widely when viewed from various

disciplines such as engineering, physiology,

psychology, social science, or cultural

anthropology. Simple or single-dimensional

definitions of comfort are almost guaranteed

to be inadequate and unsatisfactory. Like an

onion of overlapping layers, comfort can be

best understood and appreciated when we

accept the validity and complementary

nature of these different com fort

paradigms. The very notion of comfort has

evolved through history, responding to

various social, technological, economic, and

cultural influences. The onion metaphor

implies that each new meaning adds a layer

to the previous ones, which are preserved

underneath (Rybczynski, 1986). 178

Buildings, Culture and Environment

Historically, the very word ‘comfortable’ has

taken on a range of mean ings. For centuries,

‘comfort’ was only a verb and meant simply

to strengthen or console. Eventually the

meaning of the word broadened to relate to

a measure of satisfaction, but meant that

conditions were merely tolerable or

sufficient, ample but not luxurious. The

notion of domestic comfort historically

referred to attributes such as privacy, con

venience, leisure and ease. In the eighteenth

century, comfort was viewed as a

generalised feeling of well-being and calm

contentment, but it was never considered as

something that could be measured or

quantified. It wasn’t until the nineteenth

century that the term was first used to refer

to environmental comfort related to light,

heat and ventilation (Rybczynski, 1986).

Today, and in the context of this chapter, the

term ‘comfort’ relates to a physical and, in

particular, a thermal state of well-being and

satisfaction. The historical notion of

‘sufficient’ is still present, particularly within

the engineering view of comfort. The

engineering paradigm defines thermal

comfort vaguely as ‘the condition of mind

that expresses satisfaction with the thermal

environment’ (ASHRAE, 1992). However, the

methods for defining a ‘comfort zone’ or

‘comfort range’ of acceptable temperatures

are based on associating ideal conditions

only with a feeling of neutrality, or of being

totally unnoticeable. This approach ignores

the complexity of comfort and all of its

contextual and cultural influences, while the

simple goal of creating ‘thermal neutrality’ in

buildings hinders the possibility of creating

indoor environments that are richer in their

experiential quali ties than neutrality, and

that have the ability to provide valuable

sensory stimulation. Due to its complexity,

comfort is almost impossible to measure

directly. As a result, scientists have resorted

to measuring only the physical vari ables that

influence a body’s heat exchange with the

environment, asking questions about

thermal sensation (and sometimes

preference), and then making assumptions

about which of those sensations might be

associated with satisfaction or

dissatisfaction. (A simple but not so far-

fetched analogy would be asking someone

what colour the room is, but then assuming

whether they like it or not.) Since discomfort

is a more straight forward phenomenon to

measure, in practice ‘comfort’ has been

opera tionally defined to as the ‘absence of

discomfort’. In other words, the engineering

view of ideal comfort implies an absence of

sensation, where a perfect thermal

environment might be one that is never

noticed at all. But this doesn’t leave much

room for anything in between ‘neutrality’

Historical and Cultural Influences on Comfort

Expectations 179 and ‘misery’. While it is

certainly a commendable goal to avoid the

annoyances of discomfort, is our sense of

well-being really enhanced by creating

environments that are potentially dull? One

would never consider eating the same foods

for every meal, every day. Why does the

supply side of the construction industry

strive to create indoor environments that

never vary over time or space, purposely

creating a ‘sensationless, thermal Nirvana’

(Prins, 1992)? Biologists often stress that all

human sensory modalities are more

sensitive to dynamic stimuli and readily

habituated to constant stimuli. This is

certainly true in the case of cutaneous

thermoreceptors, which typically

demonstrate a thermal sensitivity to

dynamic temperature stimuli that is at least

an order of magnitude greater than that for

steady-state thermal stimuli. By deliberately

engineering our indoor environments to

minimise thermal stimuli, we may well be

making them increasingly enervating and

soporific. Many would argue that quality of

life is inherently improved in environ ments

that are enriched by a more variable sensory

palette of thermal and other experiential

qualities. This suggests we should move

beyond the engineering definition of

comfort, and instead consider the ways in

which comfort, and even the physical

variables which contribute to it, are influ

enced by architectural, climatic,

psychological, and ecological factors, along

with social and cultural expectations.

Comfort is not just an outcome of the

physical environment. It is our very attitudes

about comfort – on both an individual and a

cultural scale – that influence our basic need

for (or aversion to) mechanical heating and

cooling. Comfort is a complex perception

and, as psychologists remind us, perception

is a gestalt built out of the intersection

between objective stimuli with cognitive and

emotional processes. People’s attitudes

have a greater influence on their comfort in

indoor environments, compared to outdoor

climates with relatively more extremes. This

is because the influ ence of attitude and

cognition on human response to

environmental stress becomes increasingly

important as the severity of environmental

stress decreases. Studies of extremes

(whether of the thermal environment or of

other sensory stimuli) by necessity tend to

focus on physiological limits. However, when

levels of intensity are below the limits of

stress, then per sonal idiosyncrasy, culture,

and socially conditioned value judgements

all influence subjective response and

preference (Fitch, 1970). Comfort is a

complex and dynamic combination of the

user’s state of mind and expe rience of

space. 180 Buildings, Culture and

Environment The global significance of the

seemingly mundane topic of thermal

comfort has been reinforced recently. The

nexus between the energy con sumption for

creating indoor climate and the greenhouse

gas emissions associated with that energy

end-use has become clearer. With escalating

air-conditioning market penetration in the

rapidly growing economies of the tropics and

subtropics, the impacts of thermal comfort

technology on global warming seem certain

to increase in defiance of international

efforts to mitigate climate change.

Marketing comfort and air-conditioning

Perhaps nothing has influenced people’s

attitudes about comfort quite as

dramatically as air-conditioning. While air-

conditioning has had signifi cant positive

impacts on society, it has also had enormous

historical and cultural effects on people’s

attitudes about comfort, the way in which

we design and inhabit buildings, and even

ways in which we interact as a society.

Reyner Banham’s The Architecture of the

Well-Tempered Environment (1969) speaks

at length about the architectural changes

brought about by the development of

mechanical environmental controls, the

most significant of which involves the ‘. . .

manifestation of changed expectations,

[which includes] changes in use, changes in

user’s expectations, and changes in methods

of servicing users’ needs’ (Banham, 1969).

Elements of the mutual relationship

between air-conditioning technology and

attitudes about comfort are revealed by a

historical examination of the marketing of

air-conditioning in the USA. In Air

Conditioning Adver tising: Imagining an

Ideal, Brett Miller (1992) used post-World

War II advertisements to document

technological and social change related to

air-conditioning and the attitudes of the

American homeowner. He suc cessfully

argued that advertising is a powerful form of

information exchange that can have a

profound impact on both individuals and a

society at large. Residential air-conditioning

had become available in 1938, but few

homes had it because it was too large,

expensive and (perhaps more importantly)

lacked a marketable image. By 1948,

however, window air-conditioners were

rapidly finding their place in the American

home and, by 1950, air-conditioning was the

nation’s second fastest growing industry.

This growth was in large part due to the

success of advertisements that heralded the

air-conditioner as the solution to social

dilemmas and as a necessity for the ideal

home. In particular, the advertisements

played Historical and Cultural Influences on

Comfort Expectations 181 on the renewed

domestic role of women and the family, the

importance of convenience and leisure, and

changing attitudes about comfort and

nature. Most post-war advertisements were

directly aimed at creating a new posi tion for

the modern woman who, as a result of

having air-conditioning in her home, would

remain elegant, free from the toil of

housework, facing a day of leisure and

luxury. There was a strong theme of fashion

in the air-conditioning advertisements,

where middle-class women were well

dressed, wearing fine jewellery and with

gloved hands, suggesting an asso ciation

between climate control and social status.

The advertisements also directly associated

air-conditioning with women’s pursuit of and

real isation of beauty, by creating a more

comfortable environment conducive to rest

and relaxation. The advertisements

portrayed air-conditioning as a means to

diminishing women’s domestic work (Fig.

11.1). Although it is questionable whether

there were any real labour-saving benefits,

the advertisements overtly suggested this,

implying that an air-conditioned space made

housework easier, that it would actually be a

joy rather than a burden. The images used in

the advertisements suggested that air

conditioning was a prerequisite to a happy,

close family life, where hus bands returned

from work to a clean, healthy and

comfortable home, and to a stay-at-home

wife who was liberated from work and had

time to Fig. 11.1 Air-conditioning

advertisements emphasising themes of

leisure and luxury for women 182 Buildings,

Culture and Environment nurture her

always-cheerful children, and guard her

youthful beauty. Air-conditioning

advertisements also attempted to reveal and

shape fun damental attitudes about nature

in an age of technology where people had

unshakable faith in the power of

engineering. Names such as ‘Weather

maker’ were given to the climate controls,

accompanying claims that you could have

total mastery of the environment, creating

the perfect indoor climate that was more

ideal than any place on earth. Nature

became an abstracted, almost

sentimentalised, ideal that could be

manipulated. The advertisements promoted

this notion in two ways: first, by implying

that the home was independent of its

natural site through the homeowner’s ability

to create an ideal climate no matter where it

was; second, by emphasising that the air-

conditioner gave homeowners the ability to

maintain an indoor environment of

constancy, independent of the natural

diurnal or seasonal fluctuations outdoors.

The paradox here is that the advertisements

would promote the environ mental control

technology’s ability to match people’s desire

for constancy, while simultaneously using

images and words associated with the more

sensory and variable experiential qualities of

nature (Fig. 11.2). Far from Fig. 11.2 Air-

conditioning advertisements emphasising

themes of nature Historical and Cultural

Influences on Comfort Expectations 183 the

current thermal comfort standards that

advocate ‘neutrality’ as the ideal, these

advertisements would speak of recreating

‘springtime in the Rockies’, or the ‘lazy

warmth and comfort of June’. Ironically, the

mar keting of air-conditioning was able to

successfully appeal to people’s simultaneous

yet inconsistent desires for both a more

intimate relation ship with, and mastery

over, nature. Addiction to air-conditioning

The co-dependent relationship between

comfort expectations and air conditioning

eventually became so strong that, at least in

the US, it is often referred to as an addiction,

or treated as an entitlement. By 1960, air-

conditioning was viewed as ‘part of the

American standard of living, something

we’re all entitled to, just as we’re entitled to

heat in the winter and food on the table’

(Reese, 1960). And while some may scoff at

the use of the seemingly excessive term

‘addiction’, Kempton found that attitudes

and use patterns of air-conditioning appear

to satisfy the same definition of addiction as

used by clinicians with respect to drugs

(Kempton, 1992). In a provocative essay,

Prins (1992) examined the anthropological

dimen sions of air-conditioning in the US and

presented a scathing argument that ‘the

physical addiction to air-conditioned air is

the most pervasive and least noticed

epidemic in modern America’. He suggested

that the cul tural origins of this addiction

arise from two basic needs. First, separation

is related to maintaining socio-economic

status and to victory over nature. Second,

association is related to the expression of the

American dream of technological

abundance. Prins argues that this cultural

conditioning is, in part, driven by advertising

(as described earlier) and also by a consumer

culture in America that values dryness and

the complete absence of natural body odour.

In an earlier essay, Fitch also referred to

attitudes about body odour and the social

acceptability of perspiration when exam

ining historical and cultural differences in

what he calls the ‘habitat of the senses’. As

an example, he identified Elizabethan

England as one set of cultural circumstances

in which body odours were valued,

compared to the contemporary US, where

they are considered a social liability (Fitch,

1970). Prins’s article received widespread

criticism from scholars in a variety of f ields,

who offered alternative views to explain

cross-cultural and cross national variations in

air-conditioning use. Schnaiberg (1992), a

sociolo gist, argued that structural

differences should be explored before

proposing 184 Buildings, Culture and

Environment cultural explanations. In

particular, he proposed that the US addiction

to air-conditioning cannot be explained by

ethnocentric models of cultural

comparisons, but rather that it may be more

directly linked to a histori cal period where

utilities were heavily marketing electric

appliance use. At the same time, both

refrigeration and air-conditioning

technologies were rapidly improving and

gaining widespread acceptance. This is cer

tainly readily apparent at the commercial

building scale. The post-Second World War

expansion of large-scale air-conditioning

came simultaneously with improvements in

curtain-wall technology and the availability

of f luorescent lighting. These technical

changes rapidly led to commercial building

designs with sealed facades, as well as large

floorplates and inte rior zones in which

mechanical air-conditioning was mandatory.

This technological adoption proceeded at a

pace far faster than that of cultural change.

Stern (1992) also found it hard to accept

Prins’s cultural theories, but noted their

value for emphasising the social origins of

preference and for raising interesting

questions for further investigation. First,

Stern queried the malleability of thermal

comfort. He presented evidence from

various studies to show that comfort bands

do vary across cultural groups. Fur thermore,

these can be stretched in the short term by

deliberate efforts (specifically citing studies

which used feedback and schedules of slowly

changing thermostat settings to induce

residents to cut energy use while

maintaining comfort). Second, Stern

questioned the experience of comfort,

noting that individuals’ preference for the

ideal of ‘breezy, dry and cool’ might not be

as prevalent as Prins’s cultural theory claims.

Finally, Stern examined the barriers to

reversing the ‘addiction’, and sug gested all

these barriers have social origins. Stern and

others pointed to the uncertainty of whether

people’s attitudes about comfort, as well as

their use patterns of air-conditioning and

other comfort conditioning systems, are

truly a fundamental part of one’s culture.

Alternatively, this phenomenon may be a

response to social conditioning and the

natural ten dency to respond to social norms

and expectations. Economic competition has

also played a role in reinforcing the addiction

to air-conditioning. When commercial

establishments began installing air-

conditioning, competitors quickly saw, or at

least feared, their busi nesses suffer would if

they didn’t do the same. This was particularly

true in the humid southeast of the USA. ‘In

some Southerners the preoccupa tion with

indoor cooling reached the level of

addiction. According to one business analyst,

many Southern shoppers simply refused to

patronize non-air-conditioned stores’

(Arsenault, 1984). In the Southwest, the

rapidly growing migration of people to

America’s ‘Sunbelt’ was due in Historical and

Cultural Influences on Comfort Expectations

185 large part to the availability of air-

conditioning. This had political and policy

consequences, as these large populations

use their voices and votes to elect

representatives who will vote against energy

taxes, restrictions on electricity

consumption, or other policy options that

would inhibit their access to air-

conditioning. Stern (1992) viewed these

social institutions and the built environment

as part of our ‘material culture’, and argued

that this is where the barriers lie, and where

there is both the need and opportunity for

change. While the addiction to air-

conditioning may have initially been driven

by cultural and social issues, it can eventually

evolve into a physiological addiction where

‘air-conditioning rapidly teaches the body to

hate the heat’ (Prins, 1992), and changes our

perception and expectations of uncon

ditioned spaces and the outdoors. We create

artificial islands of cold within surroundings

that are then characterised as ‘hot’ in

contrast to those air-conditioned spaces.

‘The common summer-time observation “it’s

hot out” is most often overheard when

persons enter or leave cooled spaces. . . . In

[the] words of one resident: “We don’t use

the air-conditioner because it makes it too

hot outside”’ (Lutzenhiser, 1992). Frank

Lloyd Wright, in his 1954 book The Natural

House, also spoke artic ulately of the

relationship between artificial environments

and the changes in how we then respond to

the outdoor climate. ‘The human body is

able to continually adjust itself – to and fro.

But if you carry these contrasts too far too

often, when you are cooled the heat

becomes more unendurable; it becomes

hotter and hotter outside as you get cooler

and cooler inside. . . . Finally, nature will give

up. She will just say for you, “Well what’s the

use?”. ...I think it far better to go with the

natural climate than try to fix a special

artificial climate of your own. Climate means

something to man. It means something in

relation to one’s life in it. ...I doubt that you

can ignore climate com pletely, by reversal

make a climate of your own and get away

with it without harm to yourself.’ Wright,

1954, pp. 175–178 Air-conditioning and the

standardisation of comfort One aspect of

this deep-rooted co-dependent relationship

between comfort attitudes, air-conditioning

technology and building design is that it is

sometimes difficult to know which came

first. It is the development of 186 Buildings,

Culture and Environment air-conditioning

and its widespread application to

commercial buildings that led to the very

need for standards to quantify ‘what is

comfort?’ The standards then served as a

benchmark, telling engineers (rightly or

wrongly) what made people comfortable,

and leading to the (often exaggerated) need

for air-conditioning as the only means to

meet the standards. Similarly, people may

talk about how buildings shape the indoor

envi ronments and the indoor comfort we

experience, but it is also a society’s attitudes

to comfort that, in turn, shape buildings and

influence techno logical development. As

such, one cannot separate investigations of

cul tural attitudes about comfort from

discussions about cultural differences in

building design or HVAC (mechanical

services for heating, ventilation and air

conditioning). We are faced with a mutually

dependent relation ship between them all,

where designers and researchers, knowingly

or not, make as well as meet expectations of

comfort (Shove, 2000). Building standards

are perhaps the most influential mechanism

for trans ferring information from research

to practice, yet these often ignore the critical

social constructs comprising an inherent part

of people’s daily lives in real buildings.

Current international standards for thermal

comfort, developed by both ASHRAE

(American Society of Heating, Refrigeration,

and Air-Conditioning Engineers) and ISO (the

International Standards Organisation), lack

any recognition of cultural or regional dif

ferences in attitudes about comfort or

preferences for specific thermal con ditions.

Also absent is a lack of recognition of cultural

differences in the very need to establish

standards. Standards quickly become

institution alised in a society as rules or

norms. In an ideal sense, standards should

reflect the attitudes that a particular culture

puts on those attrib utes that they relate to

(Rapoport and Watson, 1972). In practice,

stan dards become a bureaucratic

mechanism of homogenising idiosyncratic

quirks like culture, climate, and building

purpose out of existence. Stan dards ignore

social, cultural and psychological influences,

most likely because these factors are more

complex to deal with compared to the phys

ical determinants. The responsibility for

developing these standards has historically

been driven by engineers (through their

professional societies), in collaboration with

other physical scientists and building

professionals. These groups are often the

last to recognise the role of culture. The

omission of social, psychological and

anthropological sciences from the engineer’s

under graduate curriculum might explain the

profession’s devaluation of these influences.

Furthermore, engineers have a universal

penchant for Historical and Cultural

Influences on Comfort Expectations 187

solutions that can be calculated, and

subsequently defended on unequiv ocal

technical grounds should their professional

judgement be called into doubt. The

standardisation of comfort, while

convenient, is a dangerous thing in the face

of increasing globalisation, and threatens to

diminish our planet’s essential cultural and

socio-technical diversity (Shove, 2000).

Fortunately, there are changes on the

horizon. There is recent, strong sci entific

evidence supporting the notion of an

addiction to air-conditioning. This led to a

proposal to begin to reverse the trend of air-

conditioning addiction by changing the

thermal comfort standards to acknowledge

the role of user expectations and hopes to

reverse our trend towards air conditioning

addiction. The research, funded by ASHRAE,

was based on the analysis of 21000 sets of

raw data compiled from field studies in 160

office buildings, both air-conditioned and

naturally ventilated, located on four

continents in varied climate zones (de Dear

and Brager, 2001). Each building had a

detailed set of indoor climate and thermal

comfort data that enabled the temperature

preference of its building occupants to be

statistically derived. Figures 11.3a and 11.3b

show, respectively, some of the most

compelling findings from the separate

analysis of centrally controlled HVAC

buildings, and naturally ventilated (NV)

buildings respectively. The graphs present a

regression of indoor comfort tempera ture

for each building against mean effective

temperature (ET*), which is an outdoor

temperature index that also accounts for the

effects of humid ity. Each graph shows the

regression based on both field-observed

responses from the research database, and

predictions using the Predicted Mean Vote

(PMV) index (Fanger, 1970). The PMV is a

laboratory-based index that predicts the

mean value of thermal sensation votes of a

large group of persons exposed to the same

conditions. Both the field and lab oratory

research collected subjects’ votes using the

same 7-point thermal sensation scale that

ranges from cold through neutral to hot. In

Fig. 11.3a, a careful comparison of these

preferences across all 111 cen trally air-

conditioned buildings in the database

revealed a very close agree ment with

predictions of Fanger’s PMV model of

thermal comfort (1970), regardless of the

buildings’ external climatic context.

Occupants in these buildings had become

finely adapted to the narrow, constant

conditions typically provided by the

mechanical system, and became

uncomfortable quickly if conditions deviated

from those narrow setpoints (range of tem

perature settings). The very slight variation

of preferred indoor tempera tures as a

function of outdoor climate could be fully

explained by behavioural adjustments in

clothing levels and room air speed. This con

trasted with the findings in the 45 naturally

ventilated buildings in the database, shown

in Fig. 11.3b. In these free-running buildings

without 188 Buildings, Culture and

Environment buildings with centralised

HVAC Indoor comfort temperature, Top (°C)

a Indoor comfort temperature, Top (°C) 27

26 25 24 23 22 21 20 27 26 Observed: Field-

based adaptive model Predicted: Lab-based

PMV model-5 0 5 10 15 20 25 Outdoor

temperature index, ET* (°C) buildings with

natural ventilation Observed: Field-based

adaptive model Predicted: Lab-based PMV

model 30 35 25 24 23 22 21 20 b-5 0 5 10 15

20 25 Outdoor temperature index, ET* (°C)

30 35 Fig. 11.3a Observed and predicted

indoor comfort temperatures for HVAC

buildings Fig. 11.3b Observed and predicted

indoor comfort temperatures for naturally

venti lated buildings air-conditioning, the

occupants of buildings located in warmer

climate zones actually preferred indoor

temperatures that were significantly warmer

than those preferred by the occupants of

buildings in cooler climate zones. The

differences were statistically significant and

were too large to be accounted for by

variations in clothing customs, metabolic

rates, indoor air speeds, or any other

‘physical’ variable in the PMV comfort

equation. Based on the analysis, de Dear and

Brager (2001) inter Historical and Cultural

Influences on Comfort Expectations 189

preted these findings as evidence that the

occupants of the free-running buildings were

adapting behaviourally and psychologically

to the varied indoor climates driven by

external weather and seasonal cycles. The

wide range of preferred indoor comfort

temperatures was strongly influenced by

shifting thermal expectations, most likely

resulting from a combina tion of higher levels

of perceived control, and a greater diversity

of thermal experiences in the building. In

contrast, the occupants of the air-condi

tioned buildings were becoming adapted to,

or indeed, addicted to homog enous and

static indoor climatic regimes. This work has

recently been incorporated into the

proposed revisions to ASHRAE Standard 55-

1992, in the form of a new adaptive comfort

standard (ACS) that allows warmer indoor

temperatures for naturally ventilated

buildings expressed as a func tion of mean

monthly outdoor temperature. This new

standard is intended to give designers more

flexibility to design naturally ventilated

buildings in climates where it is feasible.

Attitudes and air-conditioning use patterns

Expectations also play a role at the

residential scale. This was revealed by

several research projects that investigated

which factors influence the way people

actually use air-conditioning when they have

access to the controls. A closer examination

of actual use patterns of air-conditioning in

residences reveals that individuals and

cultures vary widely in their perceived need

for air-conditioning, and that a complex

variety of psy chological, behavioural and

cognitive factors determine air-conditioner

use and associated energy consumption.

Examples of these factors include not only

the need for cooling, but users’

understanding of how the air conditioner

works, complex notions of health and

thermal comfort, household schedules,

available choices among alternative cooling

methods, and user control behaviour

(Kempton et al., 1992). While residential

heating use is primarily driven by outdoor

temperature and is fairly predictable, air-

conditioning loads are comparatively more

erratic and have been shown to be a more

behaviour-driven system (Lutzenhiser,

1992). Physical comfort and thermal

sensation are only some of the many

determinants for choosing indoor

temperatures in warm seasons. It was found

that household schedules and multiple

overlapping systems of belief and

preferences concerning health and comfort

had far greater influences on patterns of air-

conditioning use, and that preferred indoor

temperatures were considerably wider than

one would expect from climate chamber

studies (Kempton et al., 1992). Expectations

formed outside of the home may also

influence residential use patterns. In a study

190 Buildings, Culture and Environment in

Thailand, it was found that people working in

air-conditioned build ings used air-

conditioning in their homes twice as much as

people working in naturally ventilated office

buildings, even though their eco nomic

status was equivalent (Busch 1992). An

important outcome of these studies is that

one important way in which we can reduce

dependence on air-conditioning, and its

associated energy use, is to understand

better and influence the attitudes and behav

iours that drive people’s use patterns.

Behaviours can be influenced through a

variety of motivational reinforcements, or

simply through a form of information

exchange such as providing feedback about

the comfort and energy-related

consequences of their activities (Kempton et

al., 1992). One example is a study at

Princeton University, where resi dential

energy reductions of 10–16% were achieved

by giving residents feedback about their

consumption, or by using a signal to tell

people when it was possible to turn off their

air-conditioner and cool their homes by

opening a window (Seligman et al., 1978).

Another study achieved 34% savings in air-

conditioning energy use, with no changes in

perceived comfort or clothing worn, by

educating people about space conditioning,

giving them feedback on their energy use,

and suggesting schedules of gradual

thermostat resets (Lovins, 1992) Person-

versus space-based comfort conditioning

Perhaps one area where we see the greatest

historical and cultural differ ences in

attitudes about comfort and methods of

comfort conditioning is the difference

between cooling and heating people as

opposed to interior spaces. In the USA, early

commercial buildings consisted primarily of

perimeter areas with offices having direct

exposure to the outdoors for daylighting,

solar gain and natural ventilation. The

architectural configuration and design

helped keep people cool in warm weather.

Open windows per mitted breezes to reach

the occupants, high ceilings allowed heat to

rise away from occupied zones, fans

provided cooling in localised areas, and

natural lighting for desks near the perimeter

minimised the amount of electrical lighting

required and the heat gain to be removed.

But during the 1950s, large-scale air-

conditioning, fluorescent lighting, and

curtain wall technology – combined with

cheap and plentiful energy – funda mentally

changed the way commercial buildings were

designed. While these changes offered new

opportunities for designing large buildings,

Historical and Cultural Influences on Comfort

Expectations 191 people’s enthusiasm for

the power of these new technologies led to

their misuse, generating the current trend of

internal-load-dominated buildings. These

buildings typically have flush-skin facades

with no shading, low transmittance glass,

inoperable windows and large interior zones.

Conse quently, they are completely

dependent on centrally controlled air-condi

tioning and the focus has shifted from the

human system to the building system. The

objective of these systems is typically to

provide conditions that are uniform over

space and constant over time, throughout

the entire building. Occupants generally

have little opportunity for controlling their

own thermal environments. Alternative

means of providing comfort, such as air

motion, are overlooked, and areas that

require little or no condi tioning, such as

storage areas and entry vestibules, are

sometimes waste fully heated and cooled to

the same conditions as the occupied

portions of the building. Japan offers a

contrasting example of how cultural factors

can influence attitudes about comfort and

the design of comfort conditioning systems.

One fundamental difference is that the

Japanese prefer to condition people rather

than living spaces. They believe it is wasteful

to heat and cool spaces that are not

occupied. The traditional heating system in

Japan is the kotatsu, a person heater placed

under the dining table. This provides a social

as well as a utilitarian arrangement, and is

linked to the preservation of the important

social bonds of the family. Even today the

kotatsu is still a focal point for many

Japanese families (Fujii and Lutzenhiser,

1992; Wilhite, 2002). In terms of cooling, the

Japanese design of residential air-

conditioners also follows the traditional

focus on person-based conditioning. In

particular, the controls on many of these

systems are designed to perceive and

respond to user preferences for comfort

(Fujii and Lutzenhiser, 1992). The Japanese

were also early adopters of ‘task-ambient’

air-conditioning systems where workers

have individually controlled ventilation

systems, even in interior zones of large office

buildings. Heschong’s Thermal Delight in

Architecture (1979) describes places with

strong thermal qualities from a broad

spectrum of cultures and historical periods.

All of her examples emphasise the

significance of person-centred thermal

conditioning, where experiences of

necessity, delight, affection, and sacredness

all become a purposeful part of design. The

sense of renewal in the oasis of the Islamic

garden, the Japanese art of associating

thermal experiences with other senses, or

the ritual of migration in the Baghdad

courtyard house – all illustrate the profound

cultural role that thermal archetypes and

experiential qualities can have. 192

Buildings, Culture and Environment Comfort

and connection to nature One can also find

strong cultural differences in the regard for

nature and how such attitudes influence

approaches to comfort conditioning.

Although American air-conditioning

advertising often uses images from nature,

the systems themselves are promoted for

their ability to provide constant indoor

conditions divorced from any features of the

outdoor climate. And while the Japanese

also use natural images such as glades and

waterfalls to advertise air-conditioning,

many features of Japanese systems directly

reflect their regard for nature. With the

exception of the relatively simple desktop

oscillating fan, most American cooling

systems are almost exclusively temperature-

based and attempt to minimise air

movement. Japanese systems purposely use

the term ‘wind’ to suggest a relationship

between the person and natural envi

ronment, and their controls are designed

from the perspective of the user’s

experience of the conditions rather than

referring simply to the machine’s ‘fan

speed’. These relatively sophisticated

systems are designed to produce varying air

movement patterns that produce seemingly

natural breezes inside the dwelling, where

intense gusts are less frequent and or

shorter duration than are the gentle gusts.

Some systems can even sense the location of

people in the room to direct the air towards

them (Fujii and Lutzenhiser, 1992). However,

even in Japan there are conflicting attitudes

about desiring a connection with nature

while valuing the benefits of technological

devel opment. People cling to strong cultural

attitudes about the importance of nature,

and the notion of ‘natural’ is generally

preferred to ‘artificial’. One study examined

Japanese attitudes about natural cooling

compared to air conditioning, and found that

90% considered natural cooling healthier,

75% considered it more economical, and

70% preferred it (Sawachi et al., 1987). On

the other hand, there is sometimes an

interesting conflict between what ‘should’

be a better thing compared to preferences

for comfort conditions that are more

predictable and controllable. It is perhaps

this conflict that has led to the unique

innovations in Japanese system designs (Fujii

and Lutzenhiser, 1992). Baker (2001) argues

that our affinity for the natural world is

deeply hered itary, and that the modern built

environment increasingly isolates us from it.

Baker argues that as urbanisation continues,

it becomes increasingly important to bring

more nature directly into our built

environment, and also to design the indoor

ambient environment to include

characteristics of the natural climate such as

variability in both time and space. Historical

and Cultural Influences on Comfort

Expectations 193 Comfort, building design

and social customs One can ask ‘to what

extent do culture and social norms affect

attitudes and expectations about comfort?’

But it is equally interesting to turn the

question around and ask ‘how might

attitudes about comfort, and prac tices of

comfort conditioning, such as air-

conditioning, affect culture?’ People’s

behaviour and social customs are an

important part of a culture. Traditionally,

people have responded to uncomfortable

climate by first changing behaviours such as

clothing patterns, daily schedules, alterna

tive uses of architectural space, etc. In one

particularly intriguing article, focusing on the

southern part of the US, Arsenault (1984)

speaks at length about the cultural changes

brought about by air-conditioning.

Addressing globalisation at the regional

scale, Arsenault compares the effects of the

air-conditioner to that of the aero plane and

television. The air-conditioner smooths out

differences in climate – just as the aeroplane

has radically changed our notions of dis

tance, or the television has homogenised

popular tastes – all resulting in a reduction of

regional diversity and distinctiveness. As air-

conditioning permeates a culture, it has an

enormous impact on people’s relationship

with the outdoor climate, which in turn

affects social rituals and customs. The basic

pace of life changes – gone is the siesta,

where people pause during the hottest part

of the day, resting in the shade, taking time

to reflect or socialise. Air-conditioning

modulates the daily and seasonal rhythms of

the sun, allowing us to live and work at a con

stant yet accelerated pace. One price to pay

for this climate control and disassociation

from natural rhythms is a dulling of our sense

of time and sense of other natural

occurrences. Even more profound is the

effect of air-conditioning on our sense of

place. While its direct effect on building

design is quite obvious and extensive, a

thorough review is beyond the scope of this

chapter. The effects on com mercial building

design were noted earlier, but the loss of

vernacular build ing styles is equally

significant. Traditional lifestyles in tropical

regions inspired a unique climate-response

architecture, where buildings were nat urally

ventilated and not only consumed less

energy, but gave occupants a sense of and

connection to their climate and culture. Such

buildings, however, are rapidly giving way to

sealed glass towers that have no rela

tionship with their surroundings or cultural

antecedents, resulting in both an increased

reliance on mechanical cooling and the loss

of this tropical aesthetic (Fisher, 1984).

Arsenault also considered air-conditioning’s

assault on the South’s strong sense of place,

noting that the South has been 194

Buildings, Culture and Environment

‘overwhelmed by an almost endless string of

look-alike chain stores, tract houses, glassed-

in high-rises, and perhaps most important,

enclosed shopping malls. The modern

shopping mall is the cathedral of air-

conditioned culture, and it symbolizes the

placelessness of the New South.’ Arsenault,

1984 In Kerala, one of the poorer states of

India, a recent study is examining how

strongly rooted notions of comfort are

rapidly changing, and how the heavy

marketing of air-conditioning is resulting in

the evolution of traditional climate-adapting

buildings towards newer climate-indifferent

housing designs (Wilhite, 2002). Our

relationship with our streets and neighbours

has changed as well gone is the social

dimension of the porch. Air-conditioning has

‘seduced families into retreating into houses

with closed doors and shut windows,

reducing the commonality of neighborhood

life and all but obsolescing the front-porch

society whose open casual folkways were an

appealing hallmark of a sweatier America.’

Trippett, 1979 Researchers reported that

‘families in air-conditioned houses . . .

attended fewer movies, organized fewer

picnics, stayed at home more, entertained at

home more, and kept the children inside

more.’ Cooper, 1998 Industry put a positive

spin on these changes, by praising the

increased closeness of this inward family life,

and promoting these new family pat terns as

one of the advantages of the new air-

conditioning technology. Arsenault (1984)

summarises several articles in the popular

press from the 1950s and 1960s that

portrayed air-conditioning as the saviour of

the American family, with benefits ranging

from better dispositions to increased family

privacy. He also contrasts those to other

studies that examined why such claims were

misleading and suggests that the overall

effects of air-conditioning on family life and

wider kinship networks were, at best,

contradictory. In contemporary society, this

inward pattern of living is increasingly

supported by young people’s widespread

use of the Internet for communicating,

moving us further away from face-to-face

interactions. Historical and Cultural

Influences on Comfort Expectations 195 Air-

conditioning and the resulting attitudes

about comfort have also affected cultural

patterns of dress, as we learn to expect

constant indoor temperatures that are

independent of natural seasonal swings.

Particul arly in urban areas, where people

are both living and working in air conditioned

environments, ‘many people expect to wear

the same sorts of clothing all year round and

to spend over 90% of their time in a more or

less uniform indoor environment. Such

arrangements . . . have implications for the

social organization of everyday life, at work

as well as at home.’ Shove, 2000 A recent 6-

month study of clothing behaviour of office

workers in a major multinational call centre

in Sydney showed that clothing insulation

was constant year-round, having no

correlation with outdoor temperatures

(Morgan and de Dear, 2000). The exception

was on casual-dress Fridays, when workers

were able to choose whatever they wanted

to wear. On those days, clothing insulation

values tracked outdoor temperatures quite

closely (with over 50% of the variance being

explained), even though the indoor

temperatures were held constant. The

increasing trends towards globalisation of

formal business attire, independent of

outdoor climatic context or traditional

regional clothing patterns, further mandates

the use of HVAC systems to meet

international standards for indoor climate,

regardless of global impacts of energy

consumption. Thermal monotony and the

fallacy of neutrality The technological means

exist to provide an indoor climate that is

uniform over all space, and constant across

all time. This is exactly what thermal comfort

standards and mechanical engineers

designing environ mental control systems

strive to provide. Is this goal appropriate for

all circumstances? Is our technology really

meeting our fundamental needs, or is it

possible that there is a downside to this

thermal monotony or thermal boredom?

Indeed, varied references in the literature

discuss the importance of pro viding

stimulation to ward off fatigue. In the

thermal comfort literature, McIntyre (1980)

made an early plea for counteracting

thermal boredom with fluctuating interior

temperatures to meet our inherent needs

for sensory stimulation. Although not going

into specifics about thermal experiences,

Wohlwill (1972) briefly summarises some of

the critical 196 Buildings, Culture and

Environment issues related to the

psychology of stimulation, acknowledging its

poten tial importance for both perceptual

and cognitive functions and motiva tional

processes. In addition to the dimensions of

simple intensity, novelty, and complexity,

Wohlwill notes that temporal change or

varia tion are important for reducing

boredom or monotony. Looking specifi cally

at thermal response, and examining first the

physiological basis of the human thermal

sense, it is known that the cutaneous

thermorecep tors are orders of magnitude

more sensitive to thermal transients than to

steady temperatures (Hensel, 1982).

Considering psychological and cognitive

functions, Gerlach (1974) found that the

change of stimulation around a neutral point

is more important than the absolute value of

the neutral point itself. He presents evidence

to support the premise that lack of

stimulation and variety lead to greater

tedium, stating that ‘exposure to unchanging

stimuli has been shown to induce satiation

and boredom’. While a critical function of

buildings is to create shelter and protection

from the extremes of the outdoor climate, it

is essential that they do not go so far as to

deprive occupants of subtle variations that

are essential to our mental well-being.

Gerlach explains that we perceive what

varies because our mental processes

conceive rela tionships more than absolute

objects. As with all of our senses, our

thermal receptors require stimulation in

order to help us maintain a state of

alertness. And although it is unlikely that

even the most monotonous environments in

our buildings could be characterised as

complete sensory deprivation, we should

still heed the implications of such studies

that have found that: ‘prolonged exposure to

a monotonous environment, then, has

definitely deleterious effects ...a changing

sensory environment seems essential for

human beings. Without it, the brain ceases

to function in an ade quate way . . . variety is

not the spice of life: it is the very stuff of it.’

Heron, 1957 It is time to move beyond our

relatively bland goals of creating constant

thermal neutrality in buildings in order to

simply avoid the negative (dis comfort), and

minimise dissatisfaction. In a review of

research and anec dotes regarding the

concept of thermal monotony in indoor

environments, Kwok (2000) found that, in

contrast to engineering characterisations of

comfort, a large number of architectural

educators encourage students to explore

and utilise the natural dynamic qualities of

the thermal environ ment as inspiration for

generating architectural form. This thinking

is an Historical and Cultural Influences on

Comfort Expectations 197 important way to

move towards using thermal qualities in a

more pur poseful way to add to the richness

of our indoor environments. We should be

aiming for a higher level of experiential

quality in our envi ronments, where

‘pleasantness’ rather than ‘neutrality’ are

the goals (Kuno, 1995). Designers should

strive to create spaces that are better than

‘neutral’, where people can find ‘thermal

delight’, where they can inter act with their

environments and be refreshed and

stimulated by them, where saturation of the

senses is replaced with variation and a sense

of renewal (Heschong, 1979). This may be

too much to ask of a thermal comfort

standard, but it is certainly an appropriate

idea to place in the minds of designers. One

can find clear cultural differences in this

thinking about experiential qualities. For

example, the Japanese culture has a word

suzusisa, which means ‘a pleasant thermal

sensation to be sensed under rather

unsteady-state conditions; for example, a

hot and humid environment with some

breeze’ (Saito, 2000). This is in sharp contrast

to the semantics used in American culture,

and particularly in thermal comfort

standards, where references to air

movement are almost exclusively in terms of

minimising the negative sensations of

draught. When the bene f its of air

movement are mentioned, it is only in

reference to counteract ing elevated

temperatures to maintain the body’s overall

heat balance. The more sensory ‘pleasant’

sensations associated with air movement are

never acknowledged. In some Scandinavian

cultures the avoidance of draught is almost

obses sive, and a light silk or cheesecloth

scarf has become almost de rigueur in

modern casual office attire to fend off the

draft at the back of the neck. It comes as no

surprise that the ‘draught risk equation’ that

appears in various comfort standards (ISO

7730 and ASHRAE 55) was developed in a

Danish climate chamber using a sample of

Danish college students (Fanger and

Christensen, 1986) but to the best of our

knowledge it has yet to be validated

anywhere else in the world. In another

example, Tanizaki’s essays in his 1977 book

In Praise of Shadows expound his personal

(albeit clearly biased) views about the

incongruities of Western and Eastern

aesthetics. Speaking primarily of qualities of

light and shadow, he paints a picture of the

Japan ese sense of beauty and relationship

with their environment that stems from an

appreciation of soft, subtle contrasts and

association with other senses, compared to

the relative uniformity and flatness of

Western envi ronments. 198 Buildings,

Culture and Environment Conclusions The

increasing globalisation of international

building styles has critical implications not

only for energy consumption (and its

associated envi ronmental impacts), but also

for the loss of cultural and socio-technical

diversity, as well as a loss of sense of place.

Buildings that respond to cul tural and

climatic influences tend to create indoor

environments that are varied both spatially

and temporally, providing a sensory palette

that con tributes to the building’s

experiential aesthetic. Technological

advances in mechanical heating and cooling

systems have led to buildings becom ing

more rigidly isolated from the outdoor

environment, as well from their social and

cultural contexts. These developments have

also necessitated information and standards

to define how to provide thermal comfort for

occupants of these buildings, as they have

been denied opportunities to control their

own environments to respond to their

individual preferences. Ironically, while

these standards were intended to improve

the availabil ity of technical information,

they have essentially ignored the complex

and multiple meanings of comfort. In

particular, they disregard the con textual

influences of behaviour, attitude, and

expectations in forming our comfort

preferences, and how the building itself

influences these prefer ences. As a result,

these standards are being universally applied

often unnecessarily and inappropriately,

thereby further promoting the globali sation

of building styles and the homogeneity of

indoor environments. Thermal comfort is,

indeed, malleable and is ultimately a

subjective state of mind that depends on

social and cultural expectations. People have

been shown to adapt to flat thermal

homogeneity if that is what they are exposed

to repeatedly. Alternatively, people can also

adapt to variable indoor climates if their

buildings are better connected to external

weather and seasonal variability, particularly

if they have some degree of personal control

over those conditions. Lifestyle shapes our

comfort expectations. The way we occupy

and interact with buildings that we live and

work in is an important part of one’s lifestyle.

As Western models of sealed glass towers

permeate the tropics, and expectations of

ever-increasing sophis tication in HVAC

controls continue to be fostered by the

industry, global energy demands of the built

environment will also continue to escalate

and the end-users will become increasingly

marginalised. An ‘adaptive’ approach by

occupants to thermal comfort holds

promise. This may assist in the creation of a

local approach to defining and fulfilling

comfort. Standards and the use of

international information have become

enshrined and are a major barrier which the

construction supply-side will have to

address. One way to initiate change is for

professionals in the con Historical and

Cultural Influences on Comfort Expectations

199 struction industry to recognise the social

and cultural dimensions of thermal comfort.

Researchers need to transcend the

traditional questions investigated in both

laboratory and field studies to develop multi

disciplinary research agendas that explore

the complexities of physiolog ical,

psychological, behavioural, and social

dimensions of how users occupy, interact

with, and respond to the indoor

environments in build ings. The term ‘users’

needs to be disaggregated to understand

and inform strategies for specific

demographics, contexts, localities and

needs. A broader, more critical approach to

technical standards is required and can be

achieved by including academics and

practitioners from a wider range of

disciplines in the process of making

standards. In this way, modifica tions can be

made to the universal ‘one size fits all’

approach to standards that will allow for

social, cultural and climatic differences.

Finally, design ers of buildings and

mechanical systems should develop

enhanced capa bilities and a more critical

approach to information and standards. This

will allow them to embrace the possibilities

of using experiential quali ties to enrich the

indoor environments that they help to

create, and endeavour to replace thermal

monotony with thermal delight and create

indoor environments connected to the

specificity of social, regional and cultural

contexts.

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