In previous years we have seen a recognition of the significant potential that exists for reducing energy use through innovation in residential buildings. This study investigates innovation challenges and identifies opportunities that could lead to a rapid increase in the adoption of highly energy-efficient housing concepts, particularly that of the passive house. To this end, it exemplifies, interprets and develops the innovation adoption theory through an investigation of views and experiences on the supply side, the demand side and the policy side. It highlights successful innovation trajectories and barriers experienced by businesses. It addresses both problems and positive experiences from the perspective of the end user and investigates different policy approaches. As such, the research reveals important features of innovation-adoption strategies in the building sector. It shows how multi-player enterprise collaboration plays a key role, and the study also recommends the development of quality assurance schemes. It makes a valuable contribution to discussions about how active the role of government policymakers and enterprise networks should be.

In previous years we have seen a recognition of the significant potential that exists for reducing energy use through innovation in residential buildings. This study investigates innovation challenges and identifies opportunities that could lead to a rapid increase in the adoption of highly energy-efficient housing concepts, particularly that of the passive house. To this end, it exemplifies, interprets and develops the innovation adoption theory through an investigation of views and experiences on the supply side, the demand side and the policy side. It highlights successful innovation trajectories and barriers experienced by businesses. It addresses both problems and positive experiences from the perspective of the end user and investigates different policy approaches. As such, the research reveals important features of innovation-adoption strategies in the building sector. It shows how multi-player enterprise collaboration plays a key role, and the study also recommends the development of quality assurance schemes. It makes a valuable contribution to discussions about how active the role of government policymakers and enterprise networks should be.

Self-Build Homes connects the burgeoning interdisciplinary research on self-build with commentary from leading international figures in the self-build and wider housing sector. Through their focus on community, dwelling, home and identity, the chapters explore the various meanings of self-build housing, encouraging new directions for discussions about self-building and calling for the recognition of the social dimensions of this process, from consideration of the structures, policies and practices that shape it, through to the lived experience of individuals and households.Divided into four parts – Discourse, Rationale, Meaning; Values, Lifestyles, Imaginaries; Community and Identity; and Perspectives from Practice – the volume comes at a time of renewed focus from policy managers and practitioners, as well as prospective builders themselves, on self-build as a means for producing homes that are more stylised, affordable and appropriate for the specific needs of households. It responds to recent advances in housing and planning policy, while also bringing this into conversation with interdisciplinary perspectives from across the social sciences on housing, home and homemaking. In this way, the book seeks to update understandings of self-build and to account for housing as a distinctly social process.

The application of technology to housing design, construction, and operation offers opportunities for improving affordability, energy efficiency, comfort, safety, and convenience for consumers. New technologies and production processes could help resolve serious problems facing housing producers, including labor shortages, interruptions due to inclement weather, quality control, and theft and vandalism losses. However, it is generally believed that realizing these benefits on a broad scale is considerably hindered by characteristics of the housing industry that inhibit the development and diffusion of innovations. The Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing (PATH) supports activities to address issues that are perceived by the industry to be the primary causes of the problems, i.e., barriers to innovation, lack of accessible information, and insufficient research and development (R&D) (NAHBRC, 1998). PATH was initiated in 1998 when Congress appropriated funds for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to begin implementing the concept, which was created by the National Science and Technology Council Construction and Building Subcommittee (NSTC C&B). At the request of HUD, the National Research Council (NRC) assembled a panel of experts as the Committee for Review and Assessment of the Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing under the NRC Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment. The committee was asked to assess how well PATH is achieving its many program objectives to expand the development and utilization of new technologies in the U.S. housing industry. The committee has approached evaluation of the program as an exercise that also provides direction for PATH's future improvement.

This report examines the structure, characteristics, and motivations of major participants in the housing industry to explore how innovation might be accelerated. It identifies options and strategies for the federal government to consider as it attempts to further advance innovation in housing to make homes more affordable, durable, and safe. Innovation in housing would provide benefits to a broad range of participants, including homebuilders, manufacturers, insurers, regulators, and homeowners.

Community housing developers produce affordable housing and jobs for many residents of low-income neighborhoods through the rehabilitation of existing single and multi-family buildings. Typically operating as small, not-for-profits or community-based organizations, the vast numbers of community housing developers creates high coordinating costs of operating jointly to acquire the shared learning needed to implement new techniques, such as those involving energy efficiency. This paper presents a model of technology adoption that suggests that new profitable technologies will be adopted only with low probability and that strategic interaction between potential adopters further reduces the likelihood of adoption. These features result from the ability of potential adopters to postpone the bearing the costs of adoption of new technologies and their ability to share the knowledge of others who have adopted new technologies. These features are particularly characteristic of community housing developers.

Businesses, consumers, industry groups, and governments understand the importance of innovation and the innovation process for continued economic success and improvements in quality of life. However, innovation remains an opaque topic. A paradox exists in housing at-large; using innovation is vital yet accounting for the value to individual organizations remains a challenge. This paradox is supported by a landscape that includes a sizeable graveyard of failed attempts at innovation on grand and small scales. This book seeks to decrease the opacity of innovation processes in residential construction and housing. Along with the next book in the collection, this book addresses key questions pertinent to the potential for widespread diffusion of green buildings and for improvements in community sustainability. The overarching purpose of this book is to provide context and foundation for later books in the collection and to assist readers in peeling back the complex layers of innovation in housing and residential construction.