Elements of desirability: exploring meaningful dwelling features from resident’s perspective

Abstract

The need for more dweller-oriented approaches to the development of residential environments is widely agreed upon. In the theoretical discussion, the concept of affordances has been seen as promising in grasping the desirable dwelling features and how they become meaningful in everyday uses. However, the concept has been used surprisingly little in empirical housing studies. This article introduces an inventive method to study affordances and contributes to the understanding of the concept by reflecting its usefulness in the context of housing research. The method consists of focus group interviews guided by participant-produced photographs, which allows the participants more freedom to define what they consider meaningful in their dwellings. The results reveal some desirable dwelling features largely uncovered by the public or scholarly discussions yet. From residents' perspective, developing higher quality housing means paying greater attention to the mundane "secondary spaces", the sensory experiences and the related atmospheric qualities, as well as the continuums between interior and exterior spaces. The results also emphasize an active role of the resident in discovering and shaping the affordances.

Housing retrofit as an intervention in thermal comfort practices: Chinese and Dutch householder perspectives

“…The concept of affordances is introduced by ecological psychologist James Gibson (1979) to refer to the 'inbetween' of the perceiving humans and the material circumstances to investigate functional aspects of the environment. The environment shapes the actions of the perceiver, it is portrayed as an environment where almost nothing changes, fluctuates, moves or flows (Kuoppa et al 2019). The concept of affordances as defined by Gibson emphasises the environment as the shaper of action positionalities, which makes affordances not dependent on values and meanings and past experiences.…”

“…To introduce a householder perspective to affordances more inclusively, Tweed (2013) and Kuoppa et al 2019 argue that in housing studies, the concept of affordances is promising to scrutinize the designed living environment and links of experiences with technologies as integrated into domestic practices, building on Ingold (1992). The origin of Ingold's interest in the concept of affordances is based on the potential of affordances to bridge the dualism between the material world and the social-culturally constructed world (Ingold 2000).…”

“…Because of the great variety of affordances, Tweed (2013) and Kuoppa et al (2019) propose to capture the whole range of affordances not only in strictly functional terms but also what is (un)desirable and meaningful or meaningless from a householder perspective. Distinguishing positive and negative sides of affordances may help to unravel different technical aspects of retrofitting, in relation to different elements of domestic practices, consisting of materials, meanings and competences.…”

“…Distinguishing positive and negative sides of affordances may help to unravel different technical aspects of retrofitting, in relation to different elements of domestic practices, consisting of materials, meanings and competences. Including the whole range of negative and also positive affordances helps to do more justice to the complexity in the relationships between different aspects of affordances (Baborska-Narozny and Stevenson 2019; Kuoppa et al 2019). Positive affordances are potentially beneficial in a householder context, with a strong fit between designed retrofit technologies and domestic practices.…”

Houkuttelevan asumisen ainekset

“…Käsitteen avulla asumisen merkitykset, toiminnot ja käytännöt voidaan näin kytkeä asuinympäristön fyysisiin ja tilallisiin ominaisuuksiin. (Clapham, 2011;Heft & Kyttä, 2006;Kuoppa, Nieminen, Ruoppila & Laine, 2019) Käsitettä on pidetty lupaavana asumisen ja muun rakennetun ympäristön tutkimuksessa (Clapham, 2011;Coolen, 2015;Coolen & Meesters, 2012a, 2012bHeft & Kyttä, 2006;Lapintie, 2010), mutta sitä on sovellettu alan empiirisessä tutkimuksessa suhteellisen vähän (Kyttä ym., 2013, s. 32;Maier ym., 2009). Käsitteen hyödyntämisen keskeisiä ongelmia ovat olleet yhtäältä, miten asukkaat saisivat mahdollisimman vapaasti määritellä heille merkitykselliset tarjoumat, ja toisaalta, miten asumisen fyysinen ja tilallinen ulottuvuus sekä merkitykset ja käytännöt kytketään menetelmällisesti yhteen (Kuoppa ym., 2019).…”