Role of ‘Community Spaces’ in Residents’ Adaptation to Energy-Efficient Heating Technologies—Insights from a UK Low-Energy Housing Development

Advanced energy-efficient heating technologies are often integral to low-energy home design, practice, and policy. The expectation is that technologies designed to lower space-heating energy use may also contribute to better performing buildings and a comfortable indoor environment. Too often, though, it is found that residents do not use technologies as intended due to multiple socio-technological phenomena. Whilst increasing efforts have been made to better understand residents’ social engagement with energy-efficient heating technologies, there is a lack of evidence that takes into account the wider context of a housing development. This paper draws on residents’ experiences across 40 dwellings in a recently completed low-energy residential development in the United Kingdom (UK). Implications of the research are twofold. First, the study contributes to a better understanding of the emerging roles, motivations, and expectations that a ‘community’ has for residents living in domestic low-energy environments. Second, there are implications for design professions to take account of the potential effects that specific external collective spaces such as playgrounds, allotments, and gardens can have on the ways that residents adapt to new technologies within their home. There are also implications for international energy policies on low-energy housing, specifically in relation to energy efficiency technology adaptation and learning.