TY - JOUR

T1 - Negotiating comfort in low energy housing

T2 - the politics of intermediation

AU - Grandclément, Catherine

AU - Karvonen, Andrew

AU - Guy, Simon

PY - 2015/9

Y1 - 2015/9

N2 - Optimising the energy performance of buildings is technically and economically challenging but it also has significant social implications. Maintaining comfortable indoor conditions while reducing energy consumption involves careful design, construction, and management of the built environment and its inhabitants. In this paper, we present findings from the study of a new low energy building for older people in Grenoble, France where conflicts emerged over the simultaneous pursuit of energy efficiency and comfort. The findings contribute to the contemporary literature on the sociotechnical study of buildings and energy use by focusing on intermediation, those activities that associate a technology to end users. Intermediation activities take many forms, and in some cases, can result in the harmonisation or alignment of energy efficiency goals and comfort goals. In other cases, intermediation is unsuccessful, leading to the conventional dichotomy between optimising technical performance and meeting occupant preferences. By highlighting the multiple ways that comfort and energy efficiency is negotiated, we conclude that buildings are provisional achievements that are constantly being intermediated. This suggests that building energy efficiency policies and programmes need to provide opportunities for intermediaries to negotiate the desires and preferences of the multiple stakeholders that are implicated in low energy buildings.

AB - Optimising the energy performance of buildings is technically and economically challenging but it also has significant social implications. Maintaining comfortable indoor conditions while reducing energy consumption involves careful design, construction, and management of the built environment and its inhabitants. In this paper, we present findings from the study of a new low energy building for older people in Grenoble, France where conflicts emerged over the simultaneous pursuit of energy efficiency and comfort. The findings contribute to the contemporary literature on the sociotechnical study of buildings and energy use by focusing on intermediation, those activities that associate a technology to end users. Intermediation activities take many forms, and in some cases, can result in the harmonisation or alignment of energy efficiency goals and comfort goals. In other cases, intermediation is unsuccessful, leading to the conventional dichotomy between optimising technical performance and meeting occupant preferences. By highlighting the multiple ways that comfort and energy efficiency is negotiated, we conclude that buildings are provisional achievements that are constantly being intermediated. This suggests that building energy efficiency policies and programmes need to provide opportunities for intermediaries to negotiate the desires and preferences of the multiple stakeholders that are implicated in low energy buildings.

KW - Comfort

KW - Domestic buildings

KW - Energy efficiency

KW - Intermediation

KW - Occupation stage

U2 - 10.1016/j.enpol.2014.11.034

DO - 10.1016/j.enpol.2014.11.034

M3 - Journal article

VL - 84

SP - 213

EP - 222

JO - Energy Policy

JF - Energy Policy

SN - 0301-4215

ER -