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Method and methodology in housing user

research
a a
Robert Furbey & Barry Goodchild
a
Department of Urban and Regional Studies , Sheffield City
Polytechnic , Pond Street, Sheffield, S1 1WB
Published online: 12 Apr 2007.

To cite this article: Robert Furbey & Barry Goodchild (1986) Method and methodology in housing user
research, Housing Studies, 1:3, 166-181, DOI: 10.1080/02673038608720574

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 Housing Studies Vol 1 No 3

Method and Methodology

in Housing User Research
Robert Furbey and Barry Goodchild
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Abstract
In a context of growing housing shortage and decay pressure is mounting for a renewed
programme of low-cost housing for rent. Such a programme would raise again the question of
appropriate design standards and the issue of user participation in new housing provision. The
argument in this article is that the social survey method, despite its past use in positivist and
architecturally functionalist (and therefore deficient) housing satisfaction studies and in the
Department of the Environment's Housing Appraisal Kit, does not necessarily entail positivism or a
narrow functionalism and should be reconsidered as an option within the participatory design
approach of 'community architecture' or as complementary to this approach.

Setting housing standards in 1980 (Central Statistical Office, 1985, Table

This article offers a reappraisal of the social
survey method as a means of contributing to
the debate about the design standards
appropriate for new dwellings. Certainly, the
inadequacy of the methodology of the 'housing
satisfaction' surveys of the 60s and 70s and of
the Department of the Environment's Housing
Appraisal Kit will be underlined. However, it
will be argued that the survey method need not
imply a positivist methodology or an environ-
mental determinism which depicts the rela-
tionship between dwelling and occupant in
terms of the bleak epistemology of a purely
functionalist architecture. The survey method
can be used to explore people's assessment of
their housing in the context of the symbolic
meaning of their homes developed through
their past experiences and engagement with
wider social structures and processes.
The construction of significant numbers of
new dwellings is not an immediate option for
local authorities and most housing associations.
By 1984, reductions in state capital housing
expenditure had reduced the number of local
authority and housing association completions
in England and Wales to 31,000 and 14,000
respectively compared with 78,000 and 20,000
12.4, p77). While the Housing Policy Review of
1977 calculated a need of 300,000 new dwell-
ings per year (Department of the Environment,
1977), the decline of the building programme
in these tenures has not been balanced by a
corresponding increase in building for owner
occupation. Completions in this sector have
scarcely risen above 150,000 in Great Britain
since the early 70s and amounted to 137,000 in
1984 (Central Statistical Office, ibid), with the
Conservative Government's low-cost home
ownership initiatives having a strictly limited
effect (Forrest et al, 1984). With new house
building so depressed, the importance of
investment in rehabilitation is increased, yet
since peaking in 1983 improvements and re-
novations have been reduced. The result is a
fast decaying housing stock of which, in Eng-
land, even by 1981, 21.7% of all dwellings
required repairs costing £2,500 or more (De-
partment of the Environment, 1982, part 1). As
the awareness of a mounting housing crisis
grows, so does political pressure for a revival
of housing investment and new house building,
most notably through the Inquiry into British
Housing chaired by the Duke of Edinburgh
(National Federation of Housing Associations,
1985).

166

However, if 'new build' is to return to the
agenda it is also appropriate to reconsider the
procedures by which the design and amenity
standards of new homes are established. This
remains the case whether the new homes are
built by local authorities or, as seems more
likely, by housing associations and other
bodies using both public and private finance.
While it can be argued that Parker Morris
standards (Central Housing Advisory Commit-
tee, 1961) should remain an essential point of
reference in a debate on housing design and
amenity, the experience of the period during
which these standards were mandatory does
not encourage continuing reliance purely upon
controls imposed by state appointed experts.
Alongside the issue of standards stands the
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issue of control. Only consideration of this latter
point permits an answer to questions such as
that posed by Ward: 'Why is it that on one side
of town the speculative builder's sub-Parker
Morris houses are enhanced from the moment
they are occupied while on the other side of
town, the high-quality council development
declines from the time the tenants move in?'
(Ward, 1985, pl8).
The Thatcher Government's response to
such questions has been to advance housing
control and choice as attainable by extending
the role of the market in housing policy, albeit
with heavy subsidies to owner occupiers.
Market forces have also been permitted to
exercise greater influence over housing stan-
dards. In 1981 Parker Morris standards were
replaced by a new system of project control by
which local authorities can build to whatever
standards they wish on condition that the total
cost of development is less than the likely
market value of the scheme on completion as
determined by a professional valuer (Depart-
ment of the Environment, 1981a). Hence, stan-
dards are now influenced strongly by the price
and design standards of dwellings at the lower
end of the private market where living space
and other amenities are determined substan-
tially by the need for profit. Private builders
often circumvent discussion of housing design
standards by arguing that the acceptability of
their product is demonstrated by the existence
of sufficient willing purchasers. However, as
Ball observes, 'the argument is flawed, as the
statement "if it sells they must have liked it" is
tautological. On that criterion all purchasers of
model T Fords had the same favourite colour:
black' (Ball, 1983, pl37). Recent studies of
consumer response to starter homes and other
Method and Methodology in Housing User Research
estates on the lower rungs of the private
housing ladder have revealed by no means
universal acclaim by purchasers of their new
homes (Canter et al, 1979; Department of the
Environment, 1980; Consumers' Association,
1984). Basing housing amenity upon the ex-
change value of dwellings does not ensure
adequate use values for the many low income
householders who are unable to take advan-
tage of the mobility and short to medium term
capital accumulation available to relatively
affluent owner occupiers who are able to trade
up in the housing market. The original pur-
chase of such dwellings may reflect a lack of
alternatives rather than choice, and the dim-
inished standards of private sector dwellings,
many of which have fallen still further below
Parker Morris in recent years, can offer a
correspondingly reduced degree of user
control.
If the market is seen as inadequate to the
task of establishing suitable design and amen-
ity standards, further methods must be con-
sidered. Commenting on the discussion of
housing issues by the political Left, Darke
notes that there has been a tendency 'to focus
on housing finance and numerical targets.
Recently there has been some discussion of
housing management, but little attention has
been given to the quality and character of
housing. Yet these aspects are central to the
experience of "consumers" and to their feelings
about their homes' (Darke, 1984, p67). To the
extent that a wider debate about non-market
approaches to the establishment of housing
standards has occurred, however, there has
been a strong emphasis upon the need to
involve housing users in specifying their own
requirements and cooperating in the provision
of their own housing (see, for example, Matrix,
1984, where the exclusion of women from the
design process is discussed, and Ward, 1985).
This attempt to give residents control of
housing design rather than rely upon the
imposition of professionally sanctioned stan-
dards is being given divergent forms of practi-
cal expression by advocates of 'community
architecture' and tenant cooperatives.
The intention here is not to develop a
negative critique of community architecture. A
major contribution of the New Right through
their assault on the welfare state has been to
force others to reassess current modes of
provision and to search for new forms of
service which offer not only equity but also
choice, control and personal dignity. In this
167
 Housing Studies Vol 1 No 3
reformulation of social policy the potential of
community architecture is clearly worth pur-
suing. Nevertheless, the history of British hous-
ing policy has tended to be marked by a
sequence of flawed panaceas, with each new
conventional wisdom being greeted with the
same enthusiasm as had once been accorded
to the outgoing discredited formula. While
experiments in direct user involvement in
housing design are long overdue in Britain and
must be welcomed, it would be unfortunate
indeed if community architecture was upheld
as a new grail, the only means to producing
user-friendly housing. (Woolley, 1984, offers a
critical, but ultimately supportive, review).
Indeed, certain aspects of the approach invite
scepticism. The notion of 'community' is as
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much evaluative as descriptive and is an
important element in political ideologies (see,
for example, Plant, 1974, and Gusfield, 1975). In
particular, it is used frequently in attempts to
define out of existence conflicting interests and
opinions which may obstruct smooth policy
formulation and implementation. Do 'communi-
ties' exist which can readily be mobilised by
community architects or do urban neighbour-
hoods more commonly contain a number of
communities with divergent views on the future
of the district? Secondly, much of the discus-
sion about community architecture is redolent
of the vogue for 'public participation' in town
planning in the late 60s. Of course, such a
resemblance need not presage failure but the
problems which afflicted many attempts to
translate the rhetoric of participation into prac-
tice, such as the limited cross-section of the
population who 'participated', the exhausting
and demoralising delays in decision making,
and the vulnerability of the process to the
'incorporating' tactics of urban professionals
and politicians, all suggest that critical judg-
ment should not be suspended. Finally, it is
worth observing that in the modern world very
few items in daily use are created by the user.
We wear clothes, eat food, drive cars, and
listen to music all designed, concocted, manu-
factured or performed by others and such use
need not engender a sense of alienation or
indignity. Indeed, many households in all ten-
ures live contentedly in dwellings designed
and constructed by others, their home being a
context from which they can exercise their
creativity in other directions. Certainly, some
will be quick to embrace the opportunity (and
the enormous effort) of participating in the
construction of their own home, but many more
168
will wish to expend their best energies in other
directions and for them the requirement is for
an off-the-peg home which is reasonably
attuned both to their identity and to their
functional needs.
In the search for methods by which to
establish appropriate design and amenity stan-
dards, recourse to market forces and to com-
munity architecture are possible alternatives.
A further possibility, and one which can be
used in conjuction with the other techniques, is
to make use of the responses of residents to
questions about their present or future housing
posed in more or less formal interviews. It is to
an evaluation of this specific usage of the social
survey method that we can now turn.
Social surveys, positivism and
architectural functionalism
The survey method is often regarded as being
bound indissolubly to 'positivism' as a philos--
ophy of social science. Although it will be
argued below that this assumption is open to
vigorous challenge, it is certainly the case that
many past surveys, including studies of housing
satisfaction, have involved positivist presup-
positions. Readers approaching housing issues
from a social scientific perspective will be
aware of the main characteristics of 'positivism'
and the major criticisms of this approach to
social explanation. However, many others in-
terested in housing studies will be less familiar
with this debate and since it is a central point of
reference for the later discussion of the survey
method in housing user research it is important
that some of the main aspects of the controversy
are sketched here.
Although many critics have been content to
attack 'positivism', the term has been used to
embrace philosophies of science that accord
varying emphasis to specific ideas so that it is
possible to speak of a Variety of positivisms'
(Hughes, 1980, pl6). However, Giddens (1974,
pp2-5) has supplied a broad definition upon
which widespread reliance has been placed
(see, for example, Lipman and Harris, 1980,
pp68-9). Giddens suggests that as a philosophy
positivism rests upon the following proposi-
tions. First, reality consists in what is available
to the senses and all valid knowledge must
stem from careful observation of an existing
world 'out there'. In Hughes' words, positivism
'posits the independent existence of an exter-
nal world made known to us by its action on our

senses. The knower contributes very little to
the organisation of such experience and the
knowledge it provides of the external world'
(Hughes, op cit, p21). • Secondly, positivists
maintain a clear distinction between state-
ments of fact and statements of value. Hence,
many maintaining this distinction have asserted
that the scientific procedures, of hypothesis
formulation and empirical testing can indeed
establish 'facts' independent of the values of the
researcher. 'The notions that categories used
are inevitably based on theoretical positions is
denied by the. positivisf (Marsh, 1982, p50).
This epistemology of positivism yields a
distinctive methodology (logic of inquiry) in-
volving three related assumptions (Giddens, op
cit, pp3-4). First, social scientists adhering to
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positivism regard themselves as engaged in
essentially the same enterprise as natural
scientists, acting as observers of an external
social reality which comprises people as ob-
jects in principle similar to the elements of the
material world. Secondly, this continuity
between natural and social science is seen in
the outcome of social research, the formulation
of laws or probability statements similar to
those characterising physics or chemistry.
Finally, holding to the commitment to the
separability of facts and values, positivist social
science is advanced as value-neutral, an
essentially technical enterprise.
It has been argued that an explanation of
social reality which relies upon the observation
of external behaviour (including speech)
leaves largely unexplored the inner life of
individuals and the manner in which invisible
consciousness connects with visible action. An
obvious positivist response to this charge is that
outward behaviour often can be read as
evidence of a person's inner state or of
relationships within a group, and positivist
social science has involved the development of
a range of research methods (techniques of
inquiry) which purport to achieve this objective.
These procedures commonly involve the
specification -of indicators of unobservable
inner life or of social structural relationships,
the attachment to these indicators of numerical
properties to permit measurement at varying
levels of precision, and the manipulation of the
Variables' so created to test for the existence of
causal relationships. When higher levels of
measurement are deemed possible, positivist
social science becomes statistically sophisti-
cated as techniques of multi-variate analysis
are employed, the language used to develop
Method and Methodology in Housing User Research
such analysis being typically formal and
apparently neutral, appearing to reflect not the
subjectivity of the researcher but the measur-
able properties of an empirically available
world.
In view of its methodological assumptions,
the marriage between positivist social science
and the social survey method appears entirely
predictable. Marsh defines a social survey
as 'an investigation where: (a) systematic
measurements are made over a series of cases
yielding a rectangle of data; (b) the variables in
the matrix are analysed to see if they show any
patterns; and (c) the subject matter is social'
(Marsh, op cit, p6). The essential character-
istics of positivism can all be expressed through
such a research method. Survey researchers
adopt the role of an observer and analysis
proceeds by regarding respondents as the
bearers of characteristics that can be regarded
as Variables' to be subjected to different levels
of measurement. Through the analysis of the
relationships between variables an attempt is
made to identify causal connections that can be
taken as evidence of law-like relationships akin
to those advanced in the natural sciences. The
survey findings are often presented as facts in
a technical and seemingly neutral language,
often in the form of statistical tests of correlation
and significance.
It is also important in the context of this
article to underline the congruence between
positivism and architectural functionalism for
both are founded upon a similar model of
humanity and both have involved the use of the
social survey as a research strategy.
Critics of positivism regard human beings as
subjects, possessing minds distinct from matter
which enable them to exist not simply as
passive recipients of external influences but as
active in consciously creating society and
attributing meaning to their own behaviour and
that of others. This dimension of meaning, it is
argued, indicates the clear distinction which
must be maintained between natural and social
science. In the sphere of human society be-
haviour is much less likely to be intelligible
merely by examining outward appearances for
here behaviour is seldom quite what it seems.
As individuals relate to their material and
social surroundings so they develop motives
and systems of meaning that are misunder-
stood all too easily by the social scientist who
relies upon the observation of externals. For
positivists, however, people are essentially
objects of study, part of the natural world, their
169
 Housing Studies Vol 1 No 3
individual characteristics and actions explic-
able in terms of the external material and social
forces acting upon them.
Architectural functionalism rests upon simi-
lar assumptions concerning humanity, being a
behaviourist approach to design which takes
as its point of departure not what people think
or feel about the buildings which they occupy
but how they visibly behave in relation to them.
Originating in the 20s, mainly in France,
Germany and the Low Countries as' part of the
Modern Movement, functionalism's central
proposition is that architectural form should
seek a design that fits most closely the activi-
ties that are undertaken within a building,
avoiding unnecessary external decoration. The
French architect Le Corbusier gave vivid
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expression to this philosophy in his remark 'the
house is a machine for living in'. The first task of
functionalist design, therefore, was to identify
the 'minimum house', a simple architectural
form which would satisfy most fully, at minimum
cost, the basic living requirements of space, air
and light. Once identified, this minimum house
was to be mass-produced until whole residen-
tial districts and then entire cities were cre-
ated. The new architecture was intended to
reflect the spirit of the modern machine age. It
was to be revolutionary aesthetically because it
would be inspired by cubist sculpture and
painting, revolutionary technically because it
would utilise the new materials of steel, glass
and concrete, and revolutionary in a social
sense because it would provide cheap mass
housing and banish the squalor of the
nineteenth-century industrial city. However,
it paralleled positivist and behaviourist
approaches to social science by paying scant
regard to the possibility that a home might
constitute something more than a functional
machine for its occupants. Housing was de-
signed to reflect the spirit of the machine age
rather than to reflect the multifarious meaning
systems and social identities of different house-
holds.
The style of the modern movement has not
been given widespread expression by private
builders in Britain who generally have followed
popular preferences influenced heavily by the
reaction against 19th century urbanism. As one
commentator on the speculative housing boom
of the 30s observed, 'the majority of people
wanted something like a country house. They
did not like a terraced house because it
reminded them of the dreariness and conges-
tion of towns' (Myles Wright, 1946). In the
170
public sector too, the Tudor Walters report of
1918 advanced 'cottages' as the ideal, revealing
a similar commitment to the vernacular designs
of the past. And it can be argued that the public
response to housing remains based on similar
anti-industrial, anti-urban sentiments. Modern
housing 'continues to reflect the separation of
home and work life, the former impersonal,
disciplined and insensate, the latter for most
people an outlet for personal fulfilment and
aesthetic experience' (MacCormac, 1978).
If, with the notable exception of the high-rise
flats of the 50s and 60s, the style of the modern
movement has not been widely adopted in
Britain, the functionalist method has been more
influential. It is important to recognise that the
attempt to define design and amenity stan-
dards in house building (in the past, mainly in
the public sector) does tend towards func-
tionalism even if the full implications of this
philosophy are not accepted. The Parker
Morris report provides an example. The report
defined user needs in narrow functionalist
terms, stating that 'the problem of design starts
with a clear recognition of ... activities and
their relative importance in social, family and
individual lives and goes on to assess the
conditions necessary for their pursuit in terms
of space, atmosphere, efficiency, comfort, furni-
ture and equipment, organising together those
activities that demand it, separating those
which cannot be carried on together or near
one another, considering frequency, time and
sequence as well as place' (Central Housing
Advisory Committee, op cit). Hence, in empha-
sising the more quantifiable aspects of design
and neglecting the appearance of the dwelling
and its meaning for its occupants, the recom-
mendations of the Parker Morris committee
may properly be described as constituting a
•minimum house' as this term was understood in
the early literature of the modern movement.
(For a more developed discussion of housing
design standards, see Goodchild and Furbey,
1986).
Once the machine was specified attention
turned to monitoring its performance as, in the
60s, the scope of building research expanded
to evaluate dwellings in use, so initiating the
tradition of housing user or housing satisfaction
research. Given the close association between
the social survey method and positivism and
the affinity between positivism and the be-
haviourism of the architectural functionalism
which had come to influence design methods,
it is not surprising to find the survey method as

central to this new research. A series of
officially commissioned surveys were under-
taken asking occupants about their general
housing preferences, their general satisfaction
with their dwelling and their neighbourhood,
and about specific deficiencies in their homes.
In the fifteen years after 1960 between four and
five thousand housewives in Britain living on
nearly 70 housing schemes were interviewed
(Burbidge, 1975, pl59). The stated purpose of
such studies was to enable designers to learn
from previous experience; hence the descrip-
tion of housing satisfaction studies as feedback
research1. A review and a development of the
criticisms of this approach to housing user
research is a necessary prerequisite to the
later attempt to reaffirm the place of the survey
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method in housing provision.
Housing satisfaction surveys -
positively reductionist
Housing satisfaction surveys constitute an
attempt to understand architectural perception
and to contribute to housing and planning
policy by exploring the relationships between
the evaluation of their homes by residents and
a series of variables selected to represent the
physical characteristics of the dwellings and
their immediate physical surroundings. The
normal research instrument is a highly struc-
tured interview schedule or postal question-
naire. Responses are recorded and coded in
such a way as to permit statistical analysis to
explore the relationships between survey vari-
ables.
The critics of housing satisfaction surveys
regard them as particularly crude examples of
positivism and environmental determinism.
And, indeed, such research does conceive of
people as objects, the passive recipients of a
series of external stimuli which govern their ap-
praisal of their homes. Through the examination
of the correlations between these evaluations
and the physical attributes of the dwellings an
attempt is made to discern the 'laws' that
govern residential perception. As Donnelly
observes, 'this view neatly assumes that the
social world in which we live does not mediate
these perceptions and attempts to deal with
housing satisfaction and suchlike as physical
problems' (Donnelly, 1980, p24). By their re-
liance upon the observation of a limited
number of variables pertaining mainly to the
physical character of housing estates, many
Method and Methodology in Housing User Research
satisfaction surveys fail even to begin to locate
their respondents in a social context which is
crucial to their perception of their housing
situation. The use of formal interviewing techni-
ques is consistent with this a-social quality of
numerous housing satisfaction surveys. It is all
too easy for such a strategy to confirm a
tendency in environmental psychology to 'con-
ceive of society as aggregations of atomised
individuals. They place the objects ("subjects")
of their inquiries in an abstract world; a world
denuded of social relations, of social power
and, especially vis-a-vis space, of asymmetri-
cally distributed access to and control of re-
sources' (Lipman and Harris, op cit, p70).
Hence, there is little consideration given to the
role of the wider national and local structural
forces which form a powerful context for the
perception of a housing development, or for
the influence of the diversity of social worlds
inhabited by interviewees.
A research instrument which reflects these
features with especial clarity is the Housing
Appraisal Kit1 which the Department of the
Environment developed as a means whereby
local authorities could evaluate their house
building and modernisation schemes. The 'kit'
includes a postal questionnaire in which the
respondents intrude only to give their 'opinions'
to discrete questions on aspects of housing and
estate design, mainly in the form of ticks to
precoded alternatives. It is only when the local
authority's official calls to collect and check the
questionnaire that 'a few extra questions about
household composition' are asked (Department
of the Environment, 1978, pi). Nothing is
known, for example, of respondents' previous
housing, the process by which they secured
their present dwelling and whether they be-
lieve that they had some choice in the matter,
their subsequent experiences of housing man-
agement, the proportion of their household's
income consumed in rent, rates and heating
costs, and the nature of their perception of
other housing forms and tenures, to list only a
few potentially crucial social, economic, and
political influences upon housing perception.
Such research, therefore, reflects a further
related weakness in positivist methodology by
failing to confront adequately the dimension of
meaning in human social life. If survey respon-
dents relate to their physical environment as
active subjects, interpreting their surroundings
and endowing them with meanings derived
through interaction with other members of their
household, neighbours, workmates, the mass
171
 Housing Studies Vol 1 No 3
media, and governmental agencies (notably
housing management), an approach that con-
ceives of them as objects in a mechanistic
chain, to be understood solely through the
development of a number of abstract laws
derived through techniques of observation and
correlation, is likely to be partial and mislead-
ing.
To illustrate this point it is useful to consider
the typical response to what in the past has
often been regarded as a key question em-
ployed in housing satisfaction studies:
'How would you sum up your feelings
about your house or flat?'
(Department of the Environment, ibid,
P41).
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In response to this question respondents are
requested to tick one of a range of options on a
five-point scale from 'very satisfied' to Very
dissatisfied'. This question signals the culmin-
ation of a questionnaire that to this point has
involved questions relating exclusively to the
physical dimensions, amenity and aspects of
the dwelling and the degree of privacy and
noise insulation that it affords. Subsequent
questions concern the appearance, play pro-
vision, parking facilities, maintenance, amenity
and locational convenience of the estate
before, virtually at the end of the questionnaire,
the respondent is invited to answer the following
question using the same five-point scale:
'Taking everything into account-your
home, the estate, and the area it is in - how
would you sum up your feelings about
living here generally?' (ibid, p44).
Usually such questions elicit a high propor-
tion of answers recorded as 'satisfied' or Very
satisfied', 70-80% of respondents living on very
new estates and as high as 40-50% even among
residents in dwellings scheduled for slum
clearance as unfit for human habitation (Eng-
lish, et al 1976, p203). These proportions are
studied in relation to indicators of dwelling
design and respondents' answers to more
specific questions on housing amenity. Refer-
ring to the statistical techniques used in a
number of studies, for example, Coulson feels
able to speak of 'important' and 'very important'
factors contributing to residents' satisfaction,
noting that the main factor was appearance,
which accounted for up to 30% of satisfaction'
(Coulson, 1980, pi248). This is very precise
language but before it is accepted too readily it
is surely vital to consider what answers to such
172
questions might mean and whether residents'
perceptions of their homes can be.compre-
hended adequately by a concept of 'satisfac-
tion' considered merely in relation to indicators
of the physical environment.
When greater interpretive care is taken,
expressions of being 'satisfied' or Very satis-
fied' with a dwelling are less likely to be
accepted without adequate reflection. That
such a low proportion of people, even in homes
defined officially as unfit for human habitation,
express dissatisfaction with their dwellings
initially may seem surprising. In reviewing the
results of a study of housing satisfaction among
residents in 50 new housing developments
conducted in the late 60s, one of the members
of the development team of the later Housing
Appraisal Kit observed that 'it is remarkable
that residents' satisfaction with the dwelling,
the estate or generally, could be equally high
for those schemes with the least money spent
on them as for those with the most spent on
them' (Burbidge, op cit, pl60). However, when
the meaning which respondents ascribe to a
question of their general housing satisfaction is
considered, perhaps such replies are not so
remarkable as they may. appear initially.
While positivist survey research tends to
assume consistency in respondents' replies,
Sennett and Cobb note that people's accounts
of their lives are often confusing and apparently
contradictory (Sennett and Cobb, 1972, p28).
For example, employing the techniques of
open-ended 'depth' interviews rather than a
more formal survey approach, they noted a
disparity between people's initial accounts of
their experiences of career advancement and
moves to higher quality housing, in which
considerable self-satisfaction was expressed,
and subsequent admissions of a sense of
constraint and unfulfilment (ibid, p20). They
suggest that this seeming inconsistency can be
unravelled by interpreting their interviewees'
statements in terms of the ideals of freedom
and dignity. Arguing that dignity stems from
the ability to initiate the events that direct one's
life, Sennett and Cobb observe that many in
urban industrial society, notably people in
manual and routine non-manual occupations
and the unemployed, experience life as some-
thing which happens to them rather than
something which they make happen (ibid,
p21). This, perhaps, is true pre-eminently of
people rehoused via a programme of slum
clearance which has been described rightly as
a situation of extreme powerlessness in which

the state not only decrees that a house should
be demolished but also, in most cases, deter-
mines the nature of the household's new
dwelling (English et al, op cit, pp9-10). This
lack of freedom can be seen as corrosive of an
individual's sense of dignity and self-esteem,
not least because housing in capitalist society is
increasingly a badge of identity, a source and
indicator of social status. To admit to a stranger
that your home is unsatisfactory, therefore, is to
say a great deal more and to admit that your
unsatisfactory dwelling is an indication of your
unsatisfactory, undignified, constrained life. In
view of this, it is surprising perhaps that anyone
expresses any general dissatisfaction with their
home! Questions concerning specific attributes
of a dwelling may be less likely to evoke the
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same degree of repression and one may
expect more critical observations to be volun-
teered, but even here the extent of discontent
is likely to be understated.
The importance of the dimension of meaning
to a correct understanding of respondents'
replies can be illustrated in a second way. A
common result of housing satisfaction surveys
has been that the 'appearance' of the dwelling
is the feature correlated most strongly with
general expressions of housing satisfaction and
dissatisfaction. Thus, a report of a survey
undertaken in 1967 by the Ministry of Housing
and Local Government includes the following
remark: 'Surprisingly, satisfaction with the
estate was not determined by such factors as
density, building form, living on or off the
ground and problems of children's play, but
was most closely related to the appearance of
the estate and the way it was looked after'
(Department of the Environment, 1972). Again,
a later-official report based on the Housing
Appraisal Kit states that "when examined statis-
tically, factors associated with the estate, its
appearance and the neighbourhood in which it
was located, were all found to correlate more
highly to overall satisfaction than factors associ-
ated with the individual houses or flats' (De-
partment of the Environment, 1981b). Again, in
terms of functionalist design theory such a
correlation may indeed seem 'surprising'.
However, if the researcher gives greater
recognition to the importance of shared mean-
ings, the statistical relationship between
appearance and housing satisfaction confirms
the importance of symbolism rather than func-
tion in determining housing perceptions. The
appearance of a house and its surroundings is
not merely a superficial aspect of design. Since
Method and Methodology in Housing User Research
the meaning of architecture is transmitted
mainly through visual symbolism, a question
concerning whether a person likes the appear-
ance of their house comes close (or as close as
any question in such surveys) to asking
whether that person likes the social meaning of
the home as well.
In the context of such positivist, environmen-
tally determinist surveys, 'satisfaction' is a word
that is being put into people's mouths in an
attempt to represent an extremely complex
inner process of environmental perception in
operational terms; that is, in a way that uses
observable behaviour (in this case verbal
statements of satisfaction/dissatisfaction) to in-
dicate unobservable mental life. In fact, in the
absence of further material to assist the inter-
pretation of replies, housing 'satisfaction' is a
construct which the researcher is imposing
upon the interviewee which may or may not
form a significant part in the latter's system of
meanings.
Even if the respondent does recognise the
concept it cannot be assumed that he or she
will attribute to it the same meaning as the
researcher. Moreover, should equivalence of
meaning indeed occur there can still be no
guarantee that the verbal responses to inter-
view questions constitute accurate reflections
of attitudes and opinions. Interviews are social
encounters in which respondents may seek to
impress, please or confuse their interviewers,
thereby failing to express their views or
uncertainties.
Housing satisfaction surveys have paid scant
regard to ambiguities and uncertainties in
people's perceptions. It is common in such
research to utilise five-point scales in an
attempt to measure satisfaction. The implica-
tion that we can regard all replies coded T as
equivalent, thereby enabling us to speak with
apparent precision of 20% of our sample being
'highly satisfied' with their homes, seems ques-
tionable and an example of the familiar error of
'measurement by fiat' (Coombs, 1953, pp471-2;
Torgerson, 1958, p21; Circourel, op cit, pl3).
Moreover, in constricting replies within such
rigid scales the researcher irons out ambi-
guities, subtleties and inconsistencies in re-
spondents' perceptions of their homes which
may not be given due weight in the final report,
especially if adequate contextual material has
not been obtained. As Cicourel suggests,
'questionnaire items which seek to measure
values, attitudes, norms and the like tend to
ignore the emergent, innovational and prob-
173
 Housing Studies Vol 1 No 3
lematic character of everyday life by imposing
a deterministic "grid" on it with their fixed-
choice structure' (Cicourel, op cit, pi 13). Atti-
tude scales tend to assume a logic and con-
sistency that may correspond to an academic
ideal but one which is seldom replicated in
daily life.
The critique of positivist methodology in
survey research is now longstanding with
Cicourel's influential text being published in
1964. Moreover, a recognition of the social
mediation of perception has been central to the
sub-discipline of environmental psychology
during the last fifteen years (see, for example,
Goodey, 1971 and 1980). Yet the Housing
Appraisal Kit, which embodies a classic com-
bination of functionalist design theory and
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positivist methodology, was produced as re-
cently as 1978 and reissued without major
substantive revision in 1983. Many similar
surveys have been undertaken by public
bodies during the last two decades. To explain
this apparent paradox it is necessary to indi-
cate the potential ideological utility of such
research.
It has been argued that housing satisfaction
surveys are necessarily conservative in their
implications for policy, an argument which
comprises several interconnected strands.
First, social surveys are expensive and this
tends to confine them to use by governmental,
business and academic institutions. Secondly,
compared with other techniques the formal
questionnaire involves limited participation by
the researcher in the experience of the res-
pondents. Coupled with the potentially strong
agenda-setting role of the researcher in deter-
mining the scope and wording of the questions
and the form and interpretation of the replies, it
is all too easy for the researcher to elicit data
consistent with the expectations and eventual
purposes of the funding body.
This closing down of inconvenient lines of
inquiry does indeed seem to be characteristic
of many housing satisfaction surveys which, as
described earlier, treat respondents as iso-
lated consumers, apart from the social context
of culture and power which influences and
constrains perceived alternatives and ex-
pressed preferences. Recently, for example, a
report by the British Market Research Bureau
for the Building Societies Association disco-
vered a very high proportion of respondents
expressing a desire for owner occupation
within two years. Such a finding can and has
been used to advance the case for government
174
policy to bolster this tenure rather than others.
But as Doling remarks, 'the answers you get
depend on the questions you ask. When
people are asked about housing tenure, the
question cannot be separated from years of
social conditioning in which owner occupation
has been promoted by being equated with
freedom, independence and the natural order
of things. Neither can the question be sepa-
rated from financial considerations. The con-
sumer is making decisions that have been
structured by the thrust of a state policy that
often allows people to buy more-cheaply than
they could rent1 (Doling, 1983, plO). With a
candour unusual in housing satisfaction re-
search, Coulson concedes that social and
economic conditions are 'likely to be para-
mount in mediating the effect of environment
on satisfaction' (Coulson, op cit, pi246) but
notes that, as the designer can do little to
influence this wider context, analysis must
focus upon more malleable physical variables.
Hence, the scope of investigation is limited
largely to technical matters more under the
control of departments of planning and
architecture even though, as Coulson
observes, such an approach is conservative in
confining debate to alternative detailed de-
signs within social and political parameters
which remain unchallenged.
Finally, the assumption of many survey re-
searchers that expressed opinions and be-
haviour can be assumed to stem from deeply
held and enduring 'attitudes' categorised by
the researcher has also been questioned. The
concept of attitudes is regarded by Cicourel as
implying a static and deterministic understand-
ing of social life: 'the notion of underlying stable
attitudes as determiners of social action avoids
the use of concepts which indicate change'
(Cicourel, op cit, pi 13). An emphasis upon
'attitudes' therefore, can discourage an ex-
ploration of the creative response of people
to changes in their circumstances. The
framework of meaning supplied by the present
and past social context is ignored and inconve-
nient data are filtered out in the search for
fixed, well-rounded attitudes.
The critique of positivism and social survey
techniques outlined here has considerable
force and confronts much housing user re-
search with some very damaging questions.
However, it is important to consider whether,
in the light of this attack, social surveys stand as
necessarily and irretrievably flawed or
whether it is possible to accept the substantial

points of the critique and still look to the survey
method for valid understanding.
Rehabilitating housing user
surveys
In her recent assessment of the survey method
Catherine Marsh poses what, for the present
article, is the key methodological question:
'Positivism is, in fact, like sin: everyone is
against it. The question is whether surveys are
inherently sinful. Are they good or bad in
themselves? Do you have to buy this unsatisfac-
tory epistemological package to get the free
gift of survey methods?' (Marsh, op cit, p51).
Marsh advances a cogent defence of survey
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procedures correctly conceived and em-
ployed which forms a framework for the
following attempt to rehabilitate the social
survey method in housing research. The dis-
cussion entails the examination of several
interrelated arguments: that the sociology of
system and the sociology of action should not
be regarded as sealed, mutually exclusive
alternatives; that an emphasis upon human
agency in social affairs does not vitiate the
search for causal explanations; that, in any
case, social surveys can be employed to
explore actors' meanings; that alternative
sociological methods exhibit frequently many
of the difficulties attributed to surveys and also
involve inadequacies of their own; and that the
survey method need not be atomistic or con-
servative in its implications for policy.
First, therefore, while writers such as Dawe
(1970) have been correct to identify the exist-
ence of discrete sociologies of system (em-
phasising causality) and action (emphasising
meaning), whether there is any necessary
separation between them is more question-
able. Many social scientists have been unwill-
ing to adopt a purely voluntarist or determinist
position and have attempted to reconcile the
importance of necessity and freedom within a
single epistemology. Notable in this respect, of
course, was Max Weber with his insistence
that the social scientist should strive to explain
phenomena at both the level of cause and the
level of meaning (Weber, 1949). More re-
cently, Giddens although not regarding
Weber's analysis of action as beyond reproach
(Giddens, 1976, p23), has also emphasised 'the
duality of structure' by which he means that
'social structures are both constituted by hu-
man agency, and yet at the same time are the
Method and Methodology in Housing User Research
very medium of this constitution' (ibid, pl21).
Marsh comments that this is 'the paradox at the
heart of some of the most exciting sociological
explanations; studies which can show the
double-sided nature of the human condition,
creating as well as experiencing social struc-
tures, are the most satisfying ones to read' (op
cit, plOO).
While the force of the criticisms made of
positivism by the 'sociologists of action' can be
accepted readily, therefore, this alternative
explanation contains its own over-emphasis
upon the creation of social life by free indi-
viduals who are active in developing inten-
tions, realising objectives, establishing rules of
language, and in attributing meaning to their
own behaviour in a context divorced from
processes of power, conflict and, in the end,
constraint. Respondents to a housing user
survey are active in making sense both of the
interview questions and of their housing cir-
cumstances, but their replies (especially those
of low-income householders) are also framed
by a series of structural constraints.
If the importance of system, structure and
constraint in social life is reaffirmed, so we
must reinstate the significance of causal analy-
sis in social science. In signalling the role of
subjectivity and will in human affairs it has also
often been the case that 'a good horse has been
ridden to death' (Ryan, 1970, p240) by proceed-
ing to the conclusion that the notion of causality
is inappropriate to the study of human society.
Thus, 'to the extent that there are constraints
upon unbridled will, part of the apparatus of
causality will be needed to explain the struc-
turing of these constraints' (Marsh, op cit,
plOO). Interpretative sociology attributes over-
riding significance to the intentions of the actor
in its attempt to understand social life. More-
over, in probing for these intentions consider-
able weight is attached to the actor's own
account of his or her behaviour or opinions.
When the actor is located within a context of
constraint, however, then action is often more a
reflection of these pressures than of pure
choice and can be regarded as suitable for
causal analysis. The contraints on action are not
always recognised or admitted by actors in
their accounts of their motivation or behaviour
and, therefore, it needs to be stressed that in
certain situations the researcher does have
access to information not available to the
subject which facilitates a different, arguably
superior, explanation. Certainly a subject's own
account has to be given more weight than often
175
 Housing Studies Vol 1 No 3
it is accorded in positivistic social science, but
it is not the only account to be considered.
Hence, the access which the researcher may
enjoy in housing user research to comparative
data relating to many people and groups living
in a wide variety of housing areas may permit
the evaluation of causal models leading to the
identification of processes not perceived by
the subjects themselves.
Thirdly, if a place for causal analysis in social
science is granted, it can be argued that causal
analysis can be used also to explore the
meaning of social action. Subjective intentions
are not without causes or, in Berger's words,
'freedom and causality are not logically contra-
dictory terms ... Freedom is not that which is
uncaused' (Berger, 1966, pl43). However, it is
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important to realise that the notion of causality
employed in the social sciences only facilitates
the exploration of subjective life by being
extended beyond the emphasis upon external
mechanical covariance characteristic of the
natural sciences. 'The causes of human be-
haviour are reasons, not mechanical causes'
(Ryan, op cit, pi 17, emphasis added). Demon-
strating causality in a social context, therefore,
consists substantially in showing how be-
haviour flows rationally from what a person
believes to be in his or her best interest or
what he or she considers to be morally right.
This involves the elucidation of social rules
(and the meanings which actors attribute to the
framework of rules surrounding them and the
ways in which they respond to them) rather
than the mere identification of external regu-
larities (Ryan, ibid, ppl39 and 146-7). The
existence of social regularities signifies not
only (or even mainly) that human beings are
part of the same physical universe as that
studied by natural scientists. It reflects also the
creation through an historical process of nego-
tiation and political conflict of a framework of
social rules which form the basis for human
relations and intentions. In identifying social
surveys as inherently positivist critics of this
method have argued that, being committed to
causal explanation, surveys can offer only a
mechanistic account. But if we expand our
definition of causality to embrace the social
development of rules, values, norms, meanings
and reasons as a source of opinion and actions,
then, not only can surveys contribute to a richer
form of causal analysis of social affairs, but in so
doing they can contribute also to meaningfully
adequate explanations.
Developing this last point, Marsh suggests a
176
number of ways in which surveys can be used
to elicit and understand meanings (op cit, Ch
5). First she draws attention to the value of what
is often termed 'facesheet sociology'. This is the
common practice in social surveys of securing
information on characteristics of the respon-
dents such as their age, sex, social class, race
and income. Examining the relationship be-
tween these independent variables, singly or
in combination, with the dependent variable
can often produce some significant correla-
tions. These facesheet data, however, do not
explain why the correlation exists and the
researcher generally supplies a meaningful
interpretation from his or her pre-existing stock
of knowledge or prejudice with no way of
proving that the explanation is correct. How-
ever, if the background variables are selected
carefully, according to considerations dictated
by an explicit theoretical model developed
through a variety of research strategies, cor-
relations between facesheet variables can help
to confirm an explanation. This explanation is
likely to be meaningfully adequate if the
facesheet data 'are pieces of information which
allow us, as observers, to get an idea of what
the subjective experience of the actor must
have been like, and of what the actor might
have been reacting to or trying to achieve in
the circumstances (Marsh, ibid, plO4). A major
criticism of research instruments such as the
Housing Appraisal Kit is precisely that they fail
to obtain any of this background information
which would place people's evaluations of their
homes within a meaningful social, economic
and political context. For a survey on a housing
estate where people have moved to their
new homes as a result of a slum clearance
programme, for example, it is important to
know the location of the previous home, the
extent of residents' choice of their new housing,
the increase in the proportion of household
income incurred through the move and other
contextual information in order to interpret
adequately their evaluations of their present
dwellings.
To enter more fully into the subjective
experience of respondents, however, social
survey researchers must go beyond the cor-
relation of variables. A common strategy here
is to actually ask respondents to supply mean-
ings by asking them to give their reasons for
their actions or their views. Of course, as noted
earlier, the respondent may not be able or
willing to give accurate or reliable answers to
•why' questions.' Painful experiences and feel-

ings or what the respondent perceives to be
the "wrong' answer are often repressed or
withheld. Moreover, "why' questions and their
answers are notoriously open to misinterpret-
ation so that reasons are best elicited through
depth interviews where misunderstandings
are more likely to be resolved. Survey re-
search involves a trade-off between depth
interviews, best suited to the understanding of
meanings, and more formal techniques involv-
ing larger samples, more appropriate for causal
testing. Nevertheless, with careful piloting so
that problems arising from misunderstanding
can be minimised, it is reasonable to conclude
that the use of open-ended questions with
appropriate probing of unclear replies, in
otherwise fairly formal interview schedules,
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can serve to modify or change the researcher's
interpretation of correlations in a manner
which takes much fuller account of the mean-
ings and reasons of the respondents. Unlike
interpretations upon the basis of facesheet
data, this procedure stems from within the
research itself rather than from outside it. An
example of the value of "why' questions in the
context of housing user research is seen in the
wide range of reasons which people may have
for expressing a positive or a negative generally
evaluation of their dwelling. A survey instru-
ment such as the Housing Appraisal Kit, reflect-
ing architecturally functionalist assumptions,
tends to encourage the interpretation of the
respondent's evaluations in terms of the func-
tionality of the amenity and the design of the
dwelling. For the occupant, however, it may be
the economic costs of the dwelling which
weigh more heavily in expressing general
assessments of the home. Indeed, given the
magnitude of public sector rent rises since
1980, it would be surprising if this were not the
case. While open-ended questions which in-
vite people to give their reasons for the
evaluations of their dwellings which they ex-
press cannot guarantee misinterpretation, they
do offer a much greater opportunity for an
accurate understanding of replies than a ques-
tionnaire which relies exclusively upon pre-
coded alternatives.
Two final points can be made concerning the
subject of social surveys and meaning. First,
while the use of high-level measurement scales
and their associated powerful statistical techni-
ques can certainly do great violence to the
meanings intended by respondents, just as
Cicourel suggests, the risks of distortion are
reduced substantially if coding schemes are
Method and Methodology in Housing User Research
kept simple and nominal measurement em-
ployed, even if the ensuing research report
emerges as apparently less precise. Secondly,
having argued that social surveys, correctly
designed, may embody many of the advan-
tages of less formal techniques, notably the
ability to contribute to explanations adequate
at the level of meaning, it is worth observing
that these other methods do not always escape
the weaknesses which critics often have been
too ready to attribute specifically to surveys.
Whether questions are asked in the context of
a formal interview or in the more relaxed
setting of a community architecture user de-
sign group, similar problems of misinterpre-
tation or differential response to minor changes
in question wording or demeanour can arise.
Ironically, as Marsh notes, it is through social
survey researchers experimenting carefully
with different question wordings that many of
the problems of asking questions in social
science first became apparent (Marsh, op cit,
p56). Abandoning the survey method does not
of itself ensure a resolution of the difficulty.
Survey research and social
change
Related to the major charge that the social
survey method is incapable of exploring social
meanings is the criticism that it is an inherently
conservative research strategy. It has been
argued, for example, that the popularity of
housing satisfaction surveys with public sector
agencies is attributable to their tendency
always to 'show1 that most people are 'satisfied'
with their dwellings, a result that is then
publicised as demonstrating the success of the
scheme in question Qameson, 1977). As a
relatively expensive research procedure,
many surveys are commissioned by powerful
commercial institutions and governmental
bodies and to the extent that emphasis is
placed on eliciting apparently fixed attitudes
which are expressed and interpreted in terms
laid down by the researcher rather than the
respondent it is clear that the method can be
used to support existing policies or strictly
limited alternatives. Certainly, the charge that
housing satisfaction surveys have tended to
promote conservatism in architectural style has
to be recognised. Such research has tended to
explore the reaction of residents, cast in the
role of passive individual consumers, to ex-
isting dwellings at the expense of hypothetical
177
 Housing Studies Vol 1 No 3
alternatives and has been set within a func-
tionalist theory of design to the relative neglect
of the symbolism of housing. Nevertheless, it
can still be argued that although most social
surveys are indeed conducted on behalf of
established, conservative institutions this does
not preclude the possibility of the technique
being employed fruitfully by groups committed
to social change. The conservatism of social
surveys is not a necessary conservatism.
For example, in reply to the jibe that housing
user research studies are just another variant of
market research it can be observed that the
conservatism of the latter stems not so much
from the methods employed as from the nature
of the 'market' to which the research is geared.
The emphasis is upon what will sell, the
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creation of marketable exchange values, rather
than upon what people need. Indeed, in a
capitalist society the distinction between effec-
tive demand and need tends to be discounted
and, as observed earlier, Value for money' as
established in the private sector has become
the basis also for housing standards in the
public sector. In this context research which
examines the use value of housing must be
seen as challenging the dominance of market
principles in housing policy rather than but-
tressing established arrangements.
Secondly, while social surveys are often the
research strategy of the powerful, there is no
difficulty in citing examples of survey research
which have contributed to the critique of
existing housing policy. While the power of the
book stems substantially from the acute
observation and the forceful writing of its
authors, Coates and Silburn's Poverty: the
Forgotten Englishmen makes extensive use of
survey data (Coates and Silburn, 1970). The
same is true of Rex and Moore's Race, Com-
munity and Conflict (Rex and Moore, 1967), the
Glasgow University study of slum clearance
procedures (English et al, op cit), and many
other studies. Moreover, the use of the social
survey method does exist as an option for
tenants groups with limited financial means.
The main costs in survey research are those of
the labour costs of interviewers and of securing
the necessary expertise in interview design
and analysis. In encouraging the development
of user participation in housing design, it is
certainly possible to involve residents in not
only interviewing work (to reduce costs) but
also in survey design (to reduce the risk of the
research becoming a mere public relations
exercise for the local authority or housing
178
association). During 1984 a tenants' association
in Sheffield undertook a survey of the condition
and residents' appraisal of a sample of the city's
stock of 'municipalised' older dwellings (Shar-
row Sundry Tenants' Association, 1985). The
subsequent report was used by the tenants to
lobby for greater priority to be accorded to
sundry properties. In many cases tenants'
groups can also avoid the costs of securing
expertise in survey techniques by working
with staff and students in higher education
institutions who are seeking such cooperation
to develop personal research, student projects
and dissertations.
Thirdly, while past housing user research
has encouraged the charge of conservatism by
studying the reaction of residents to existing
dwellings, the possibility of using such a
research technique to explore housing aspira-
tions and design alternatives clearly remains.
At this point social survey methods can be
combined with the use of 'games' such as the
priority evaluator exercise (Hoinville, 1971)
which elicit housing design choices from parti-
cipants in the context of a simulation of the
constraints imposed by a household's actual
budget.
Fourthly, recourse to the survey method in
housing user research need not signify com-
mitment to a narrow architectural functional-
ism, nor to what Pawley identifies as the
'superfunctionalism' of housing satisfaction sur-
veys in the 60s which responded to the
unpopularity of earlier functionalist designs
merely by seeking to monitor user 'feedback'
more precisely so as to fine-tune the original
functionalist paradigm (Pawley, 1971). As
argued above, there is no reason why housing
user surveys cannot be extended to explore
residents' appraisals of their homes in the
context of their critical assessment of housing
management and other aspects of the social
context which gives meaning to their survey
replies, as well as to an examination of the
meaning which different forms of housing hold
for them and the place of the dwelling in their
identity.
It was suggested earlier, however, that if the
establishment of housing standards is accepted
as a legitimate objective, such a stance does
imply some degree of commitment to func-
tionalism. Certainly functionalism alone is not
sufficient for it neglects the importance of
choice and control in housing. Within the
architectural literature user control commonly
is linked to the notion of 'personalisation'

(Pawley, op cit, pp96-7). An early elaboration
of this theme was supplied by Habraken in
1961: 'Living is an act which takes place in two
realms, the public and the private ... Living
exclusively in the public realm is tantamount to
institutionalisation. Living exclusively in the
private realm is a kind of exile. The dwelling
must therefore straddle both spheres ... A
public authority which builds houses must
allow them to be completed in the private
realm, otherwise the ... occupant abdicates
responsibility for his dwelling' (cited by
Pawley, ibid, p96). Rapoport has expressed
the idea more briefly: 'the meaning of many
environments is generated through
personalisation - through taking possession,
completing it, changing it' (Rapoport, 1982,
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P21).
To conceive of the functionality of the dwell-
ing and the scope which it gives for persona-
lisation as in necessary conflict, however, is
clearly misguided. Personal choice implies
adequate space and heating standards.
Moreover, the experience of self-build in
Britain suggests that, when this seemingly
ultimate method for architectural personalisa-
tion is adopted, the dwellings constructed are
largely indistinguishable from homes pro-
duced through more conventional procedures.
In Rapoport's words, personalisation is mainly
concerned With movable elements rather than
with architectural elements' (ibid, p22). Even
where housing user surveys focus purely upon
the functional dimension of design, therefore,
the issue of user control is not necessarily
evaded. Choice and control can stem in sub-
stantial measure from occupation of a functional
unit involving reasonable household costs and
the opportunity and right to adapt the structure
to the changing needs and tastes of the
occupants.
Finally, in considering the relative capacity
of surveys to foster innovations in housing
policy as opposed to a convenient status quo,
again this housing research method can only
be weighed against the strengths and weak-
nesses of alternatives. To the extent that it
constitutes an attempt to involve residents
much more fully and much earlier in the design
process than past housing satisfaction studies,
'community architecture' could be seen as
such an alternative. However, community
architecture as currently constituted is 'a col-
lection of ideas and social forces rather than
something which can be defined in a very
specific way as a particular form of architec-
Method and Methodology in Housing User Research
tural practice' (Woolley, op cit, p3). Hence, it
can be suggested that the survey method can
be understood as a method to be utilised by
residents within an overall participatory design
strategy rather than as a necessarily separate
or contradictory approach reserved for use by
large, powerful organisations.
To the extent that community architecture
does involve a greater degree of user par-
ticipation in housing design than a simple
recourse to interviews with residents in exist-
ing dwellings, however, it should not be
assumed that the subsequent house building
programme will involve radical innovation or
even markedly greater expressions of housing
'satisfaction'. A study by Woolley of three
estates developed through community archi-
tecture revealed that 'all three schemes
seemed very typical of the kind of two-storey
terraced housing being produced at the time
without user participation' (Woolley, ibid, pll).
Even allowing for the constraints which exist-
ing building regulations and cost yardsticks
place on these and other self-help approaches
to housing, this experience with these appar-
ently more 'radical' design methods suggests
that it is the users and their social context as
much as the research techniques which are
responsible for the conservatism of most hous-
ing design in contemporary Britain. To focus
upon surveys alone as retarding change in
housing provision is to confuse the symptom for
the cause. If housing user surveys have been
conservative in their policy implications, it is
the values and interests which have framed the
questions and their interpretations which are
responsible, not the technique itself. It can be
concluded that the social survey method can
make a considerably more subtle and liberat-
ing contribution to housing user research than
has so far been the case.
Note
1
The Housing Appraisal Kit is described as 'a
ready made social survey method aimed at
enabling local authorities to find out for them-
selves what their tenants think about the design
and layout of their housing. Its main virtues are
that it:
(a) reduces costs to a minimum;
(b) cuts out the need to plan a survey from
scratch each time;
(c) simplifies many of the procedures involved,
especially in the analysis of data; and
(d) provides results in a standard form, thus
179
 Housing Studies Vol 1 No 3
allowing ready comparison between
schemes'.
The kit 'is intended for use by people with little
or no previous experience of surveys . . .
Only the running of the computer program
and the associated task of producing punch
cards will require specialist help' (Depart-
ment of the Environment, 1978, pi).
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181