HOW DO GREEN BUILDINGS COMMUNICATE GREEN DESIGN TO BUILDING USERS? A SURVEY STUDY OF A LEED-CERTIFIED BUILDING

摘要

Studies investigating the benefits of green buildings can be approached by the affordancerntheory—the perceived properties of a thing that determine how it could possiblyrnbe used. This study focuses on the sustainable communication and educationrnthat a green building should provide. By applying the affordance theory, we examinedrnwhether a LEED-certified university campus building effectively communicates greenrndesign and sustainability to its users and if so, then how? We employed a questionnairernsurvey targeting campus users of a LEED-certified building by examining theirrnawareness of the building’s LEED status and perception of green design elements atrnmultiple spatial scales, as well as their general knowledge on green building topics.rnWe collected 177 questionnaires, of which 153 were qualified for statistical analysis.rnThe results suggested that the building itself can afford to promote awareness amongrnusers, but cannot afford to educate users on general green building knowledge. Wernfound that building users perceived green design at different spatial scales, preferringrneither product or space-related design. Our results indicate that future design shouldrncontinue promoting the use of educational signage, which was found to be the mostrneffective communicator of sustainability. The communication of green design to usersrnwith different spatial preferences remains a future research focus. Further studies onrnthe innovative use of green building design as effective communicators are neededrnto promote sustainability education among the building users.