Method and methodology in housing user research

Abstract

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.