Influences of energy-efficient design and technologies on residents’ behaviour: Post-occupancy evaluation of multifamily buildings

No significant reduction in energy use has been observed in residential and service sector in Sweden during the last two decades, despite the introduction of energy efficient design and technologies. Residents’ preferences and behaviour are pointed out as the main factors affecting whether energy efficiency in residential buildings can be achieved. Moreover, there may be a risk of rebound effects due to the energy-efficient building design and technologies. Thus, a better understanding of how the design and technologies applied to residential buildings are understood and used by the residents would allow for a better design promoting sustainable behaviours. The presented study is parts of a larger research project investigating the relation between energy-efficient buildings and end-users. The study’s aim is to advance knowledge facilitating energy efficiency as well as sustainability of collective residential buildings. Taking the theory of Affordances (Gibson. 1979) as a point of departure, a post-occupancy evaluation (POE) is designed to assess how the residents perceive and interact with the buildings’ energy-efficient solutions, and whether the buildings work as intended. Moreover, Goal-framing theory (Lindenberg & Steg, 2007) will be applied to investigate individual factors influencing the residents’ behaviours. The POE survey will be conducted in selected collective residential buildings in Sweden. The buildings are built to meet energy-efficient requirements and have been used during the last few years. It is expected that the outcomes would facilitate improvement of design and technical guidelines to promote sustainable behaviours in residential buildings.