1. Introduction
Given the surge of population towards 9 billion by 2050 and the concomitant rapid urbanization, cities around the world will have to accommodate additional dwellings while adapting to the climatic and spatial challenges facing them. The prevalence of low-carbon or zero energy homes is being driven by an international policy push to standardize these dwellings over the next few decades in the interests of climate and spatial issues [
1]. Australia has one of the highest levels of greenhouse gas emissions per capita, with the main source being energy for electricity in homes [
2,
3]. This is being driven by high energy requirements in buildings and homes that are not thermally comfortable and have high mechanical heating and cooling uses by residents [
4]. In Australia, building codes now require houses to meet minimum energy-efficiency requirements around orientation for natural ventilation and sunlight levels and building materials used [
5], and there are ongoing efforts by both industry and government to see these regulations increased [
6,
7,
8]. There are a number of projects around the country that showcase how (beyond compliance) energy efficiency and other sustainability initiatives can be incorporated into highly livable developments in Australia. Low- carbon developments (LCD) such as Christie Walk, the Commons, Bowden, Central Park and the WGV development provide working examples at different scales [
9]. These developments have focused primarily on the physical design of the developments, but questions remain around how residents perceive LCDs, including whether the design of the home is a major concern for residents, what drives these perceptions and expectations and what levels of post-occupancy satisfaction exist. If Australia and the rest of the world continue building low-carbon houses, then the motivations behind people moving into these homes are important to understand. This paper will explore the resident attraction to a 2.2-ha medium-density residential LCD in Western Australia, called WGV, and residents’ post occupancy experiences of their new homes. Perth, the capital of Western Australia, has one of the highest uptakes of solar PV systems in the country, with 25% of all residential homes possessing rooftop systems [
10] and government policies continuing to promote higher densities. As such, Perth provides a good case study for assessing these changes in the housing market [
11].
2. Relevant Literature
Previous studies examining housing preference in Perth, Australia generally and globally [
12,
13,
14,
15] have used a stated preference market-choices methodology [
14,
16], as distinct from what people have actually chosen when purchasing a home. There is often a large variation in what people would state they would buy versus what they actually do buy [
16]. Therefore, less emphasis can be placed on findings from stated market preference studies [
16,
17] compared to studies with actual market-preference methods. Stated market preference was originally used to examine the difference between preferences revealed in surveys or experiments and those observed in actual behavior. Their use has evolved from economic theories in 1953, to the study of transportation preferences in the 1980s and 1990s to environmental preferences more recently [
18]. Stated housing preference studies in Perth, Australia generally and globally have concluded that people are most influenced by the type of housing, as well as its affordability, location and size, when choosing where to live [
12,
13,
14,
15]. The Australian studies found that people prefer to own their own home, typically a large, detached house near a city center. This type of dwelling provides opportunities for self-expression, privacy and autonomy, as well as offering space to relax with less interaction with or interference from neighbors [
14,
16].
Literature examining housing preferences for low-energy or low-carbon homes has been less prevalent in Australia than in Europe. Post-occupancy evaluations of houses has centered on studies of Passive House residents, concluding that residents are generally more thermally comfortable in their dwellings in winter and appreciate the improved indoor air quality [
19]. Post-occupancy studies of low-energy buildings in Australia have focused on occupant comfort and interaction with technologies in the dwellings [
1,
4,
20,
21]. These studies have found that many occupants of LCDs have little to no experience with the new technologies and how to effectively use them to remain comfortable in their homes [
22]. However, individual user experiences are highly personal, and the many reasons that motivate people to move into an LCD, including health and well-being, lifestyle, environmental beliefs or simply price and location, should be acknowledged by builders, real-estate agents and policy makers [
19,
23,
24,
25]. Purpose-built low-energy houses in the UK were found to economically empower low-income residents through reducing energy bill stress and allowing income to be spent instead on family time together [
25].
The absence of empirical evidence documenting residents’ perceptions of these low-energy and low-carbon homes, particularly in regards to climate variability, limits the ability of policy makers and designers to understand residents’ lives at home [
20,
21]. The work conducted by [
26] highlighted this, and showed that a sustainable home is more than just an energy-efficient building—it must encompass a holistic view of the economic, environmental and social aspects of residents’ lives. Evaluations by researchers should focus on users’ reasons for choosing to live in energy-efficient buildings, to be able to give input on how to market energy-efficient buildings [
23]. This paper contributes to addressing this knowledge gap.
This research also investigates the meanings and emotional landscapes attributed to homes by LCD residents. There are different perspectives of the home advocated through the literature that have provided succinct overviews of the research undertaken, and a selection of these aspects have been compiled in
Table 1 [
27,
28,
29,
30,
31,
32]. As [
33] states, a home is a feeling, a sense of comfort or belonging, and not necessarily a location. A person can live in a house and not feel at home [
31]. The physical attributes a home provides (security, a place to raise a family, a place to perform activities and ownership) were the primary attributes a home was given in the literature pre-2000. In [
29], a summary of the literature view on home perceptions was undertaken to clarify the inclusion of other aspects in the meaning of “home” to reflect the social and personal space it provides. This line of reasoning was continued in [
34,
35], concluding that people desire housing for its provision of both material security and an emotionally stable environment, especially individuals who have faced homelessness and housing instability. This paper investigates the aspects of a home that reflect the values of a person moving into an LCD, and uses this prior literature for context.
3. Methods
This research is based on a pre- and post-occupancy evaluation of an LCD. Post-occupancy evaluation is an established method of studying occupants of buildings for feedback and/or through measurements of building performance [
19,
24,
48]. The occupants of low-carbon and similar homes (passive houses, low-energy houses, zero-energy houses) have been described as a special segment of the population with specific lifestyles, behaviors and practices and views. This is due to being early adopters of new technology, housing and community designs that are not standard for the rest of the population. The way these residents interact with these features can be studied to improve the uptake and acceptance of LCDs. With an increase in low-carbon homes around Australia, the study of these residents is vital in understanding how these buildings are integrated into society in the future. Therefore, this research will center on an LCD in Perth, Western Australia, called WGV [
49].
In this paper, “LCD” refers to a group of households that form part of a development with design performance requirements beyond the Australian National Construction Code (e.g., 7+ star NatHERS thermal performance) and inclusion of a solar PV system. This standard can be met through natural ventilation, orientation of the dwelling to take advantage of the sun, shading through awnings and verandas and building materials used, including double glazing. The WGV development studied consists of multiple dwelling types and will comprise approximately 80 dwellings when completed, including multi-story dwellings flexibly connected to a broader energy system so that a home is no longer a single dwelling but part of a system (as discussed in [
32]). The first residents began moving in to WGV in mid-2017. The homes were designed for a Mediterranean climate, with sustainability features including a passive solar design that allows airflow and sunlight levels (solar gain) to assist the regulation of international temperature. The average outdoor temperature is between 10 °C and 27.3 °C annually [
50].
A cohort study of 14 residents inhabiting 13 homes (n = 14) was undertaken, with data collected both pre- and post-occupancy in the LCD. The residents studied had moved into a variety of dwelling typologies. One cohort (five residents studied) was Sustainable Housing for Artists and Creatives (SHAC), who were leasing apartments and two studio spaces from a local social housing provider, with rental payment concessions received from the Australian Government. Another cohort (six residents studied) were owner-occupiers of apartments sold at market rates in a commercial development called Evermore. The third cohort (three residents studied) were owner-occupiers of two semi-detached units, while the final resident studied was an owner-occupier of a stand-alone (detached) house. Three households across two cohorts had previously had sustainability features in their homes.
Mixed methods were employed pre- and post-occupancy for data collection [
51,
52]. The data collection methods focused on the themes of energy, water, waste, food, transport, social network practices and residents’ expectations and motivations for moving into WGV. This paper focuses on concepts surrounding moving into WGV, such as the expectations and motivations for the move, definitions of home and how they changed, how the residents were experiencing living in WGV and community experience. The residents’ practices concerning energy, water, recycling, shopping, transport and food will be discussed in forthcoming papers.
Residents self-selected through an open invitation sent to those who had already purchased property in the LCD or were intending to become a tenant through SHAC (n = 27). An original sample size of 16 individuals in 15 dwellings were part of the pre-occupancy data collection; however, one household decided to rent out their apartment in WGV, and another removed themselves from the study. Their results are not included in this paper. Pre-occupancy data collection was conducted between April and June 2017 for SHAC residents, and between December 2017 and March 2018 for Evermore and single-house residents. Post-occupancy data collection was conducted between December 2018 and March 2019 for all residents. The long period of time for data collection pre-occupancy was intended to allow for a greater sample size of residents to self-select. However, there was a post-occupancy bias towards those in SHAC or Evermore, due to the requirement that the resident reside in the LCD during 2018, to allow for post-occupancy data collection within the research time constraints.
A structured interview explored the occupants’ motivations and experiences surrounding the move to the LCD, while text probes, hygiene and transport diaries provided contextual experience data. The interviews (questions in the semi-structured interview asked residents how they kept warm and cool, the routines they went through each day and how their lives had changed since moving to the LCD) were for approximately one hour and were undertaken in the residents’ pre- and post-occupancy accommodations, except for one which was conducted at an independent venue. In households with multiple adults, only those moving into the LCD were interviewed. Children, including those over 18 and still living at home, were not interviewed due to uncertain circumstances surrounding their residency arrangements once their parents moved into the LCD.
A workbook was completed over two weeks, allowing residents to respond to short-answer questions about their resource uses and habits (an example of a short answer question is: Do you have difficulties in getting to places?) along with 5- (5-scale Likert question example: How comfortable are you finding the house in relation to temperature? Very comfortable, mostly comfortable, neutral, mostly uncomfortable or very uncomfortable?) and 7- (7-scale Likert question example: How often do you use the public outdoor areas in WGV? Every day, a few times a week, about once a week, a few times a month, once a month, less than once a month or never?) point Likert scale survey questions. Text probes were sent periodically through these two weeks to gain in situ qualitative contextual data on current practices, minimizing the impact of recall difficulties during interviews [
53]. The text probe method is a combination of cultural probe methods developed over the past two decades that requires participants to take photos of objects during their daily life with a disposable camera [
53,
54,
55]. The advent of mobile phones has allowed a significant advancement in this method. Text messages are a low-effort, quick and familiar method for the participant, increasing response rate. Examples of the questions used are, “Tell me how you have kept warm today?” or “In a picture or a few words, tell me what home means to you?”
Data analysis occurred after the first round of data collection and again after the second round. The Likert scale data was analyzed through tabular and graphical visualization of the results to identify trends, which were then compared with the qualitative data collected. A thematic analysis was performed using NVivo software to analyze the various data sources across 43 themes. (A short list of initial themes was drawn up before the thematic analysis based on the researchers’ notes from the interviews, and this was then added to the analysis. Themes included affordability, comfort, control, convenience, energy, health, ownership, privacy, stability, thermal comfort, time, employment, cooking, fresh air, routine, washing, animals, children and sense of community.) It was during this analysis that the themes of home, sense of place and the concerns around moving to an LCD were identified as noteworthy. This paper is based on the further thematic analysis of the data with these themes in mind, following the method set out in [
56] as well as the post-occupancy evaluation of how residents are experiencing life in the LCD. Quantitative methods are not the focus in this paper, however some results from the Likert scale questionnaire are discussed due to their relevance.
5. Discussion and Conclusions
This paper set out to explore residents’ motivations and expectations for how their life would change when they moved into an LCD, and the post-occupancy evaluation of this. The concept of home in the literature revolves around technical perspectives (technology features), social perspectives (comfort, social place, physical use) and sustainable practice (sustainable housing) perspectives of home [
30]. The aspect of comfort in social housing policy generally relates to thermal or physical comfort, something that can be measured, predicted and changed through design adaptations [
31]. Previous research has found that the future of comfort remains fluid and controversial [
60]. Some of the results in this paper support this view, where the traditional notions of home design only focus on thermal comfort. In taking a social view of home perceptions and expectations of a move to an LCD, however, this research highlights the varying results that occur when non-technical aspects of an LCD are considered [
30]. Home in this paper has been outlined to be primarily a place for community, sustainability, aesthetic features, safety and comfort, although the sustainability aspect reduced in importance once residents moved into the LCD. This could be due to residents easily integrating their practices and technology in the new environment and focusing more on the community aspects of their lifestyles. The different meanings of home revealed through this research point to various opportunities and obstacles for reducing resource consumption in homes [
61]. Future research should focus on how the meaning of home influences individual and household resource consumption, and investigate how living in an LCD impacts these. This could then inform more appropriate policy making related to homes and resource use that does not solely focus on the built environment.
In the literature, a primary aspect of the meaning of home is the importance of control over space, whether in relation to personal identity, security, comfort, privacy or activities [
32,
39,
40,
46]. These results are the same even for households with sustainability features [
62,
63]. This is supported in this research, as residents were particularly motivated by housing stability and having control over their own space [
34,
35]. Other motivation results also reflect the conclusions made by previous research [
34], that the external environment of the community is important to people in a home along with housing stability. Location and design are common factors in purchasing a home anywhere, let alone in an LCD, and are replicated in this study as common features people look for in a potential home [
16].
Previous studies have shown a strong desire from residents to have sustainability features in their homes, and the WGV precinct provides them with this opportunity [
64]. The sustainability features of the LCD in this research were rated as a strong motivator for residents, followed by the community aspects being fostered at WGV. Residents believed that living in the LCD would enable them to develop practices that require less resources, increase their interaction with the community and change their travel practices. Residents of the LCD primarily found out about the opportunity to move into the LCD through their social networks of friends and workmates. Social networks are a trusted and familiar source of information for people in society, and hence might be used by real-estate agents to increase awareness of, and interest in, LCDs. LCDs feature design aspects and technology that require resident interaction to ensure their optimal performance. These can be of concern for prospective residents, as shown previously [
20], although the residents in this study were not concerned about these features pre-occupancy. Designers, planners, real-estate agents and strata managers need to explain these clearly to prospective residents to ensure the technology is maintained in good working order to achieve the sustainability outcomes of the development.
The expectation of a strong sense of community pre-occupancy concurs with the findings from many studies on the important features of a home including the community aspects [
34,
35,
41]. The strong sense of community and the self-reported thermally comfortable homes met residents’ expectations post-occupancy, and are a positive selling point for future LCDs. Some design and community aspects were met with surprise in this research. The lighting and security aspects of the Evermore development received mostly negative views from the residents as influencing the ease at which they could move about the LCD precinct and interact with other residents. The communal barbecues also had mixed reactions, engaging some residents but not all. Other options for community interaction and meeting places should be explored to accommodate other preferences.
Research focusing on questions of the home often examines only the physical and techno-economic aspects of the built environment of the dwelling that people reside in. Those studies that focus on the home tend to include social and emotional connotations along with the built environment [
20]. If policy is only focused on the built environment, then human social and emotional connections with their home may be neglected [
24]. As these are important elements of social practices, any programs designed to influence resource use in the home are unlikely to result in long-term change. The emotional landscape of a home is increasingly being recognized as significant to residents, including in this study, and its relevance should be advocated for in housing policy, along with the physical structure of the dwelling [
33,
37,
48].
For housing policy to lead to attractive homes in the future, it is important to understand which elements of the design of a home are desired by residents post-occupancy, and how these features influence daily practices. In terms of a policy approach towards housing, the WA Housing Authority acknowledges the desire for residents to have a safe, secure, stable house, and provide various dwelling types to meet residents’ needs [
62]. It is clear from this review that the term “home” is a complex system of physical and emotional elements [
63], and the various ways of categorizing it provide opportunities to change resource consumption in related practices. It is with this open policy direction in mind that this paper explored how residents perceive their homes and what they expect out of the LCDs that are being built to withstand future environmental climate change.
The authors acknowledge that this paper features results from a small cohort of LCD residents; however, it is unique in tracking them both pre- and post-occupancy. This was mostly due to the low uptake in residents who fit the time limit criteria for moving into the LCD in 2018. Some residents were also reluctant to participate, due to not having stable housing pre-occupancy, as this influenced the energy and water aspects of the research not discussed in this paper. However, with a small cohort study, particular themes could be examined in greater detail with the residents, such as how the different methods of hearing about the LCD influenced their decision to move in. Future research should examine a larger sample size of residents from different locations to assess whether other themes and concerns arise. A second post-occupancy study could also be completed once residents have resided in the LCD for a longer period of time. For most of the residents in the stand-alone and semi-detached houses and Evermore, they began living at WGV less than six months from when this data was collected. The SHAC residents had been residing at WGV for more than a year. This may have influenced their perceptions of their experiences.
Further research areas should continue to investigate LCD housing in a variety of climatic and design landscapes outside of the Australian and European regions to broaden the lessons learnt, the residents engaged with and the policies that affect LCDs. Mixed method research focusing on a longitudinal view of LCD residents is vital for understanding how residents access an LCD, move in and settle over the years with new technology and communities. Post-occupancy evaluation studies will contribute to this understanding.