The social acceptance of mass produced residential buildings among Hungarian young adults

Abstract

ABSTRACT Off-site manufacturing may play a significant role in improving both process and output productivity in the construction industry and achieving UN Sustainability Development Goals 11 and 13. However, uniform mass production can lead to a monotonous built environment that may be alienating to people. Past examples show that such buildings and neighbourhoods can rapidly become obsolete, which makes them unsustainable. In this study, two online surveys were conducted with over 100 participants focusing on prejudices towards mass manufactured residential buildings and diversity requirements for homes among Hungarian young adults. In contrast to previous studies, respondents evaluated example scenarios with standardised buildings not as observers but by imagining how they would feel or act in situations involving these buildings. The first survey examined the bias of respondents towards mass manufactured buildings with Likert, Thurstone, and semantic differential scales. The second examined how respondents would feel if they visited a home similar to their own by varying visiting frequency and degree of similarity. T-tests showed that prejudices were positive, except concerning mass manufactured buildings’ diversity, and respondents were only negative about having to see identical dwellings to theirs on a regular basis. The results suggest that in Hungary, non-uniform but standardised residential buildings can serve as a suitable tool to provide affordable housing to young adults affected by the housing crisis.