Understanding low-carbon housing retrofit within a wider nexus of practices

Tara Hipwood

doi:10.1080/13602365.2021.1925328

Abstract

Low-carbon retrofit of owner-occupied housing will make a significant contribution to reducing UK CO2 emissions. However, despite placing the home within its social context, there remain concerns that existing practice theory studies on this topic fail to adequately conceptualise ‘large’ phenomena such as retrofit. In response to this gap, this research adopts a novel nexus-of-practice approach to understanding home improvements. Drawing on thirty-one in-depth interviews and walk-through tours with owner-occupiers in Bristol, a rigorous line-by-line coding and analysis of the relationships between components of practice is undertaken. Particular attention is given to: connections between home improvement practices and the wider nexus of practices; how these connections can increase adoption of low-carbon retrofit measures; and the implications of these for the role of the architect. The findings reveal indirect relationships between low-carbon retrofit measures and other home improvement practices. They also illustrate that professional competences associated with low-carbon retrofit measures are poorly connected to the wider nexus. These connections have implications for policy seeking to encourage higher levels of low-carbon retrofit, and contribute to architects’ ability to recognise and seize opportunities to maximise the environmental benefits of owner-occupier home improvement projects.

Highlights

Architecture as a final aesthetic and tectonic object is increasingly being replaced by its conceptualisation as part of complex social processes that extend beyond the discipline
Individual research questions include: (1) How are home improvement practices connected to the wider nexus of practices?
This research has explored the explanatory power of a nexus approach to practices when applied to owner-occupier low-carbon retrofit. It contributes to addressing gaps in current practice theory understandings of large and complex phenomena such as: retrofit; the variations that arise between practices; and the enablement of individual practitioners

Summary

Introduction

Architecture as a final aesthetic and tectonic object is increasingly being replaced by its conceptualisation as part of complex social processes that extend beyond the discipline. Perhaps the greatest of these contemporary concerns is climate change and the consequent need for more sustainable ways of building In their critique of the way architecture engages with long-term sustainability, Ulysses Sengupta and Deljiana Iossifova argued that ‘the primary limitation of current common practice in architectural education, it seems, is the inability to seriously understand architectural interventions as part of several larger and (often) dynamic systems’.5. Ezio Manzini has used an ecological understanding of systems ‘characterized by the presence of the unpredictable and the unique’ rather than the predictable and standardised to propose ways of designing more resilient socio-technical systems for producing power or increasing mobility.[7]

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