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the second investigated the participants general approach to low carbon housing
design;
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the third section was specific to each project and asked about various influences
on the low carbon design;
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the fourth was again specific to each project and asked about obstacles to the
scheme’s development;
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the final section asked about consideration for the building users in the design
process.
Closed questions were used to establish the theme of each section and provide easily
comparable results and open questions were used to provide more detailed answers.
Interviewees were provided with opportunities to qualify their responses to the closed
questions at the end of each section; however, as the interviews were recorded, the
interviewees generally explained their answers as they responded to each question.
A seven point Likert item approach was employed for the closed questions with
interviewees asked to rate various factors such as, for example, 'whether they saw
planning policy as an obstacle to development' from 1(“None at all”) to 7 (“A lot”) (Johns
2010). The open ended questions were generally related to the closed questions and
asked questions such as ‘Do you think that user behaviour will be a significant factor in
the energy efficiency of the pathfinder houses since construction?’ To overcome some of
the problems of consolidating data generated by open and closed questions the software
package NVivo was used to analyse the results.
A sample of seven key members of the design team for the CfSH pilot project and the
sole designer/builder of the eco-houses were interviewed. The interviewees included the
following professionals:
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Development Officer
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Quantity Surveyor
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Architect
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Mechanical Engineer
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Electrical Engineer
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Clerk of Works
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Contractor
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CfSH Assessor
How can a code based approach differ from an ecological approach based outside
of the code?
Initial questions asked about the cost effectiveness of various approaches to achieving
low carbon design highlighted that there was a considerable level of agreement with the
members of the CfSH pilot project team and the designer/builder of the eco-house about
the cost effectiveness of low carbon design strategies such as passive solar heating,
natural ventilation, natural daylighting, improved insulation, thermal mass and improved
air-tightness (see Fig. 7).
