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State of the Nation: Domestic Buildings

The Good Homes Alliance has been collaborating with the Building Performance Network on the ‘State of the Nation: Domestic Buildings’ research project. The research has been undertaken by Prof Rajat Gupta and the Low Carbon Buildings Research Group at GHA member Oxford Brookes University.

There have been a number of studies undertaken over the last 10 years to understand the performance of homes, addressing issues such as energy consumption and outcomes for occupants and building owners. However, many of these studies are not widely publicised and limited to a small audience: their full potential is not being realised.

Now, we are transitioning into a new future of understanding building performance: the technology is becoming cheaper and data more available. As we enter a world of smart meters and smart homes, individuals and organisations will be better able to better understand how homes perform.

To harness the currently available knowledge and the opportunities around the corner, this work for the Building Performance Network addresses the following issues and includes:

  • A review of existing studies of domestic building performance.  Within scope are any studies considering energy consumption, thermal performance, environmental performance (including temperature, relative humidity and occupant feedback), and outcomes for occupants and housing providers;
  • A review of current building performance evaluation and assessment methods, including how these relate to energy consumption, comfort, health and well-being;
  • An assessment of how different building performance evaluation methods score against time, cost, and user expertise;
  • What smart meters and smart homes mean for the measurement of building performance;
  • The future of BPE, with recommendations for researchers, manufacturers, clients and where possible for the construction supply chain.

Project map

This map was created by researchers at Oxford Brookes University, School of Architecture.


Author: Building Performance Network

Publication date: June 2020

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