Living Labs

The availability of technologies in our living environment offers a new approach to the study of the interaction between people and the built environment in the context of living labs. The living lab scenario can be viewed as a concertino of action as it unfolds, drawing on available material, cognitive, affective and social resources. Five phases of the translation of cognition into ‘ecological rationality’ can be distinguished: control, adaptation, learning, improvement (evolution/innovation), change with feedback. The overall challenge facing society today is to achieve and maintain a suitable quality of life, while reducing to a sustainable level the environmental burden to which our activities give rise.

Innovative sustainable solutions in living and working setups need to embrace users’ appropriation of technologies in their daily life practices. Successful innovation scenarios implicate adaptability in technologies for users to engage in a process in which technology and practices are adapted, and even new practices are adopted as result of the appropriation. Sustainability Living Lab (SLL) offers a socio-technical infrastructure to support user-centric innovation processes for the development and adoption of sustainable solutions. It offers a collaborative platform where professionals from different disciplines work together with future users and public and private stakeholders to generate solutions that are rooted in the dynamics of daily life practices. Future users play an active role in generating and applying contextualized practice-based knowledge in the innovation process. Central in the process is the integration of users’ experiences and sustainability impact of their practices around technology appropriation. A new generation of in-situ and mixed methods is emerging to facilitate this process. This chapter introduces an integrated approach based on in-situ and mixed methods to systemize the integration of objective and subjective aspects of daily life practices at different stages of the innovation process. Three levels of integration are described with each addressing different needs and abilities of the professionals, clients and future users involved in such projects. Each level suggests specific involvement of monitoring and self-reporting activities with outcomes that varies from describing behaviours, explaining the factors that influence behaviours as well as their impact, and experimenting on alternative behaviours.

This chapter introduces the theoretical background of social practice theories as a main focus in sustainable living lab research as well as its connection to the living lab approach and links to desired broader socio-technical transition paths. Applications of practice theories to sustainable consumption and in the field of heating are introduced and conclusions drawn for using practice theories in living lab research and experiments.

This chapter focuses on the role of Sustainable Living Labs for the implementation and diffusion of low resource and sustainable Product-Service Systems (SPSS) in a “Green Economy”. In recent years the concept of “Green Economy” has emerged as a strategic priority for governments and intergovernmental organisations. Several governmental and industrial strategies reflect aspects of a variety of its definition searching for implementation of its principles. Therefore, we will start off by giving an overview of different definitions of the green economy showing its relevance for micro-oriented approaches. Subsequently, eight key areas of intervention in a Green Economy, which set up the frame and orientation of our sustainable Living Lab (SLL) approach (Sect. 4.1), are presented. The Sect. 4.2 deals with the relevance of Living Labs for the transformation process of the socio-economic regime. This process consists of changing the production-consumption systems towards sustainability through modifying processes and SPSS on the micro level. SLL focuses on sustainability innovations and offers a number of new characteristics reflecting the intervention arenas, which are described in Sect. 4.3. The Sustainable Living Lab approach offers fundamental sustainability-oriented research infrastructure, in which relevant actors are actively integrated into the development, design and testing of new PSS aiming for the transition of our sociotechnical regime towards sustainability. SLL use a three-phase-model as their methodological framework, a description of which is also provided in Sect. 4.3. The actor integrated innovation process is described in a case study from Germany dealing with one of the most relevant areas of needs: heating and airing. It shows a high potential of social innovation for sustainable development. This could foster a more human need oriented and low investment technical development of low-resource SPSS. (see Sects. 4.4 and 4.5). The chapter concludes with an outlook (Sect. 4.6).

A key goal of LivingLabs is to provide industry, including large companies and SMEs, knowledge institutes and policymakers with a unique new infrastructure in testing and the co-development of sustainable products, services, legislation and combinations of these, takes place directly with users. The three-Tier Model of living lab research which aims to connect industry, academic, and public stakeholders, while facilitating user-centred studies, is presented in this section consisting of: (a) insight research involving the study of current practices in existing homes, (b) studies in prototype houses equipped with innovative products and services focused on sustainable living, and (c) field testing, in which research prototypes are up-scaled such that existing homes can be equipped with innovative sustainable technologies.

This chapter describes a case study on personal washing that was developed in association with two subsequent Living Lab projects. Drawing on theories of practice, the case study explored the application of a practices-oriented approach to reducing household resource consumption. Personal washing was taken as a target practice because of its high and growing water and energy consumption. The case study used an iterative process to develop a feasible, but highly less resource intensive alternative to the dominant practice of showering in the Netherlands. Splashing emerged as a promising proto-practice from subsequent performances, both in the lab and the field.

Design for sustainable behaviour necessarily involves a multidisciplinary perspective, drawing on insights around human action from multiple fields, and making them relevant to designers. This chapter explores some considerations which build on these multidisciplinary concepts, around questioning assumptions and understanding people’s lives better, and introduces the Design with Intent toolkit, a design pattern collection which aims to facilitate reflective exploration of problem-solution spaces in ‘behaviour change’ contexts, with a brief exploratory example of its application to provoke discussion with householders as part of SusLabNWE.

The chapter reports from a project developing architectural research in connection to a Living Lab. The aim is to create innovative design solutions in order to decrease the environmental loads from material flows over time focusing on occupier driven renovations and alterations to layout, materials and installations of apartments in multi-residential buildings. In a first step, empirical insights from over 300 owner-occupied apartments answers the questions: what changes are made by occupiers, what motivates these changes, and can these changes be linked to different architectural designs? In the continued research the material flows and the environmental impact attributed to these occupier driven renovations and alterations will be estimated giving further indications for more sustainable design of homes.

Education efforts, both at Chalmers and elsewhere, could be developed to better suit the needs of competences that would help with solving the societal challenges of coming and current generations. The educational framework Dare2Build aims to be a part of this development by immersing its students in cross-disciplinary teams, working with co-creational methods, to solve practice-based tasks. The proximity to the explorative research environment surrounding a living lab, and the prototyping infrastructure in particular, the HSB Living Lab, is expected to incorporate innovation and entrepreneurship into the participants’ learning experiences and thereby promote utilization of activities of the university sphere.

The storyline for the design of a Living Lab is presented from the idea stage through to building construction. The design process was a co-production of social and technical knowledge within the emerging partnership, which was structured around six defined focus fields. It also describes how a unique participation within Chalmers, focused on linking research in space, added to the inspiration. The outcome is that once built, HSB Living Lab is both an innovative building and a real-life user-centered facility with the flexibility to enhance and enable innovation through the lifetime of the building.

Living Labs for Sustainable Development aim to generate low-resource innovations in production-consumption systems by integrating users and actors. This chapter presents the results of a German study investigating potentials of and measures towards the realization of a German Living Lab infrastructure to support actor-integrated sustainability research and innovations in Germany Geibler et al. (2014). Generally, as the status quo analysis revealed, the sustainability and Living Lab communities in Germany are hardly intertwined. However, twelve Living Labs that explicitly consider sustainability aspects could be identified. The analyses of drivers and barriers as well as SWOT (Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) provided the foundation to identify options for the promotion of a user-integrating research infrastructure supporting sustainable products and services. The measures suggested for Germany include a funding program for actor-integrated, socio-technical research based on a Living Lab network, a communication campaign, and programs to foster networking and the inclusion of SMEs. Some of the suggested measures have already been taken up.

Sustainability in living and working contexts aims to design innovations that are appropriated by users in their daily life activities. Appropriation is a dynamic process that acknowledges the complexity of practices in the adoption of technologies. It involves adaptation of the technology and its intended use as well as the practices that are affected by it. In Living Lab settings the innovation process is user-centric, meaning that is driven by users, their practices and the process of appropriation. This requires an active involvement of users at all stages of the design process: for gathering insights, ideation, co-designing, experimentation and evaluation. When the focus is on active involvement of users, qualitative methods are central in the design process. Qualitative methods support a wide spectrum of user involvement, from been observed to actively self-report experiences and practices to inform the design process. The more active the involvement of users and the more complex their context, the more effort and skills are needed from them. If no clear incentives for participation, active involvement becomes a burden and does not sustain overtime. In-situ and mixed-designs interventions support user centric, situated and integrated design research practices. In-situ and mixed tools take the form of mixed data probes and in-situ interventions that facilitate user involvement in the activities of data collection and interpretation. In this chapter, the SusLab Toolkit is presented as an implementation of in-situ and mixed-designs interventions in the context of heating practices at home.

Living Labs are places for open innovation where co-creation is a method for addressing real-life issues through the attribution of knowledge from science and society, the latter being a form of transdisciplinary social learning. In a Living Lab the representatives from business, society and academia, as well as citizens, have different value perceptions and propositions, providing heterogeneity across the stakeholder value spectrum. This provides a rich set of ideas and values for co-creation which can be used for both the operational phase and the integral shaping and creating the design for the physical infrastructure of the Living Lab itself. The use of co-creation workshops are demonstrated for ideation amongst the stakeholders for the HSB Living Lab. This is exemplified in the development of the social washing room which will be prototyped and tested in a fit-for-purpose multifunctional design space.

The chapter reports on a participatory drawing research study conducted by the Royal College of Art within the SusLabNWE project. It sought to explore people’s notions of energy and to visualise their ideas and associations relating to it. The study is framed within the context of the broader ethnographic research tools that were employed by the SusLabNWE consortium. The study was conducted in three phases with visitors to the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design’s Life Examined exhibition at the Royal College of Art in September 2013; with students participating in the UK ArtScience Prize at The Silk Mill, Derby in April 2014; and with visitors to the Victoria and Albert Museum Digital Design Weekend in September 2014. Participants were offered drawing materials and asked to respond to the question: What does energy look like? In this chapter we discuss the outcomes of the research process, we analyse the images that were created and we explore what they tell us about the participants’ ideas about energy and what this could mean for energy visualisations.

To uncover social influence in personal networks on how to set up the heating system, heating behaviour and advice on saving energy, as well as the influence of a household’s peer group in terms of norms and status, a mixed-methods social network analysis was conducted in the City of Bottrop, Germany. In order to analyse a household’s embeddedness in social networks, interviews were conducted with around 23 households. Personal relations (friends, neighbours, relatives and peer groups) and relations to actors in the value chain of heating/space heating (i.e. craftspeople, manufacturers) were analysed. Results indicate that contacts with family and friends play a major role and that consulting agencies and consumer advice centres influence investment decisions on insulation, for example, to a great extent—due to the highly developed infrastructure of consulting in InnovationCity Ruhr—Bottrop. The consulting organisations established therein apparently function well and it shows that advice is also further diffused through ego-networks.

This chapter addresses resident participation in the renovation of sustainable housing. Such renovation efforts aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing energy waste from heat loss. Resident behaviour after renovation is a key factor. The residents may, for example, continue to keep windows open in winter even though there is now a ventilation system. Aligning renovation processes with the residents’ habits and preferences may therefore help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. No process framework currently exists that integrates resident participation with the renovation process. Design participation is a social design approach that seeks to support collaboration between the residents and the other stakeholders with design tools. This chapter shows how design participation reveals opportunities to innovate on the stakeholder process, as well as on technologies in the home. The examples arise from an education project in which design students collaborated with residents to address pre-, during and post-renovation needs as well as routine living. Each proposal reveals challenges and possibilities for the renovation process and for home technologies. The chapter maps the design participation examples onto the building management cycle and innovation issues in it. Overall, the examples reveal that there are still gaps to bridge between design participation thinking and the current participation and innovation processes in this field. While the latter tend to focus on agreements, being heard, and application of existing technologies, the examples presented here showcase the potential of exploration and joint discovery in promoting dialogue and innovation.

This chapter presents an approach for organising research and innovation in the Living Lab context, where context research instruments, as well as conceptualised, developed and tested prototypes are integrated in one hardware and software platform (BOCS platform). The BOCS platform allows collecting of sensor and building management data, self-reporting of subjective information by users and providing feedback to users through a variety of channels. By this, the platform supports iterative cycles of context researching, co-creating, implementing and testing of solutions. The initial goal for the use of the platform is to enable creation of solutions aiding office occupants in improving their comfort while reducing building energy use. This goal is attained by enabling iterative identification and a gradual build-up of in-depth understanding of involved social practices, and incremental introduction and evaluation of ways to support the change of these social practices through monitoring, self reporting and feedback in office environments. The chapter outlines the organisation of the proposed process in detail. The approach is further positively evaluated based on the outcomes of a preliminary case study. It is finally suggested that in the future the approach may be applied to other Living Lab situations where complex challenges are faced and fast results are expected.

In the project SusLabNWE the integration of users in private households was a vital part of the concept and scientific approach because products and services need to be aligned to the user needs and fitted to their behaviour. In order to develop, design and implement innovative products that serve their purpose and are accepted by users, a high level of user engagement is expected. This chapter describes the recruitment of participants in two case studies within the SuslabNWE project.

This chapter introduces empirical social research on social milieus, and why lifestyles are of interest to Living Lab research. We present the results of a milieu analysis for Living Lab research in Bottrop. We enrich the findings from the milieu analysis by describing the influence of lifestyles on heating practices, combining a representative statistical analysis for Germany with in-depth qualitative interviews of Living Lab participants. When it comes to heating practices, lifestyles expressing higher material wealth and socio-economic status show meanings associated with comfort or convenience rather than financial reasoning.

This chapter addresses the resource consumption and GHG emissions associated with household activities and household types. Over the course of 6 weeks 16 participating households were asked to provide data regarding their activities in the fields of housing, mobility, nutrition, waste, goods and appliances, tourism and recreation. This extensive survey enabled the authors to calculate the households Material and Carbon Footprint, representing the environmental pressure for certain household types and lifestyles. It was found that even households with similar soziodemographics differ highly in their overall impact as well as the shares attributed to the different fields especially for nutrition, housing and mobility. Two workshops were conducted where households were asked to identify possible short-, mid- and long time strategies for reducing their environmental impact (road mapping). Although not all households participated, it had become clear that many external factors prevent households from adapting their behaviour most notably in the field of mobility. However, the road mapping process also showed a high affinity of the volunteers towards lifestyle changes. Regarding the set of methods used in the study, the authors conclude that the approach is promising, but future research is necessary: amongst other potential improvements it would certainly be helpful to not only analyze the resulting environmental impact of households but also the circumstances that lead to the household’s specific social practises and routines.

Food consumption represents a significant environmental impact, and in terms of climate impact, food consumption ranks among the top three contributing sectors. By changing dietary choices and reducing food waste, significant reductions in food-derived GHG emissions can be achieved. However, food consumption behavior depends on several interrelated factors, some of which have proved difficult to influence. Further research and new approaches in data collection and intervention design are needed to identify effective strategies. Here, a web-based tool for collecting highly disaggregated data on household food consumption and food waste behavior, called Food Watch, is presented. I present the results of an early version field trial, with detailed analysis of food waste categories and a discussion about intervention and feedback design. A roadmap for future research and development of the Food Watch application is also presented.

In this chapter several aspects in the design of home energy feedback are discussed along with the presentation of energy feedback design examples. The examples include the Ampul interface that was tested in the SusLab Concept House. Ampul was designed to enable users to maximize the use of available solar energy. A second example referenced is an aquarium metaphor in which plant, water and fish qualities are coupled to energy consumption and climate sensor data, which was developed as a demonstration and thirdly Powercord is described as an interface able to translate energy consumption into auditory sounds.

Influencing energy use is a major research topic. However, many approaches lump ‘energy demand’ together, disconnected from everyday artefacts, the realities of household life, and people’s diverse understandings of the systems around them. There is an opportunity for research through design which addresses relationships with the invisible concept of energy through new kinds of feedback. Powerchord is an ongoing (2014—) exploration of sonifying energy use in near-real time. The prototypes developed so far monitor multiple household electrical appliances in parallel, turning readings of the instantaneous power being drawn into various kinds of sounds. Powerchord provides a form of ambient experiential feedback intended to fit with the soundscapes of everyday domestic life, while (perhaps) enabling a deeper understanding of the characteristics of energy use. The concept was developed from ideas suggested by householders during co-creation sessions as part of the European SusLabNWE project, funded by INTERREG IVB, as part of our wider exploration of the invisibility of energy which also led to ‘Drawing Energy’ (see Chap. 14 ‘Participatory Drawing in Ethnographic Research’).

Ampul is a home energy management system (HEMS) designed for the emergent group of home energy prosumers (producers and consumers of energy at home). The innovative visualizations and interactions provided by Ampul offer prosumers timed, situated and appliance specific information on the energy that is produced and consumed. Ampul has been developed by applying in-situ interventions in real homes and Concept House Prototype 1, a home living lab facility located in a neighbourhood in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Residents of the same neighbourhoods were invited to actively collaborate in the design process. Ampul is presented in this section as an inspiring example of how Living Labs methods facilitate the role of future users as active collaborators in gathering insights and experimenting earlier concepts in homes and home living labs.

It is often assumed that providing occupants with feedback about their energy consumption will encourage them to understand their own contribution to energy consumption and stimulate them to save energy as a result. However, providing such feedback in the form of raw data is known to be too difficult for occupants to interpret. There are many examples where raw data has been replaced by easy to read data visualisations, communicated through metaphors, translated to specific tips, or even turned into playful interfaces and games. However, even such approaches often have short-lived impact on occupant behaviour, as they are often not embedded into complex social practices taking place in building environments, and providing individual feedback to occupants proves insufficient. The challenge of developing energy-feedback designs which may trigger lasting behaviour change by engaging social practices of building occupants was taken up by students following the “Interactive Technology Design” (ITD) course at the IDE faculty of TU Delft.

Building regulations have been updated to improve the energy performance of buildings. However, research has shown large differences between expected and actual energy performance of buildings. The differences have been attributed partially to occupant behaviour. Occupants have a large influence on the actual performance of buildings, creating uncertainties related to the actual energy savings, payback periods for low carbon technologies, and actual comfort in the buildings. This section explores the influence that building occupants have on the actual performance of domestic buildings and the consequences in the development of new and renovated low and zero energy housing. Monitoring building performance before and after renovation for retrofit projects, and monitoring building performance in experimental Living Labs and after the occupancy of buildings are discussed as potential solutions for occupancy uncertainties.

How is the composition of the final energy consumption of private households for heating? Is there a portion which is influenced by user behavior, and can this portion be captured with suitable equipment? Is it possible to reduce this portion by applying appropriate auxiliary devices (assistance systems)? What is the potential in different types of buildings, which how much can be saved in this way?

To be able to develop and implement high-impact sustainable innovations in the built environment, researchers, product/-service developers and policymakers in the region of Rotterdam felt the necessity to work with users to prototype, test and validate potential solutions in real life situations. In collaboration with European partners initiatives, the Concept House Village in Heijplaat Rotterdam was developed. The inner-city docklands of Rotterdam is an area in transition and forms an ideal setting for a real life test bed for future sustainable urban living and working. In this chapter the history, ambitions, context and the partnership is described. Furthermore the accompanying research and development program is enlightened. Additionally the business modeling of Concept House Village as a R&D facility is considered.

Science parks constitute an important intermediary in the innovation chain since they provide a location where government, universities and industry can cooperate and collaborate. In this chapter, Johanneberg Science Park which is located in Gothenburg city, Sweden is presented as well as its collaboration model through which development, transfer and commercialization of technology is taking place. More specific, the concept of science park’s “open arenas” is described as well as their connection to living labs. This chapter is also addressed to a unique collaboration housing project within the open arena of urban development at Johanneberg Science Park. The project is called HSB Living Lab and encloses the link between open arenas of science parks and the creation of living labs. The uniqueness of this project lies on the fact that a number of partners with different backgrounds are gathered within a single organisation, enter into a 10-year partnership agreement and get involved to a joint research and development project. In the last part of this chapter, the value proposition of HSB Living Lab for the academics, the different companies and the inhabitants being involved is discussed.

There are an estimated 170 active living labs across the globe. All have common elements but not all of them contribute to the delivery of sustainable living. Here we consider the business models of sustainability in living labs (SusLabs). Specifically we review four active living laboratories that are part of the SusLab North West Europe network. We show that the business cases are different for at least two reasons. One is that each SusLab project has a specific focus even though all are seeking to develop energy efficient innovative products, services or systems. Examples of focus include demonstration projects, knowledge generation through research and business to business development. The other is that each came about for different reasons which might include significant public or private sponsorship, or through academia-business co-creation, and this too is reflected in the business case. We also show that the business cases are not static, but may evolve over time as opportunities are created and as partners develop a clearer understanding of the potential of each SusLab. We propose that, based on a common definition of a SusLab, theoretical considerations and societal needs, as well as insights from the cases, it should be possible to build a business case for a SusLab which draws on knowledge rather than learning-by-doing.

As technology has advanced so has the future role of living labs evolved. With the increased availability of wireless monitoring technologies including climate and activity sensors as well as self-reporting tools, the capability to convert virtually every house or building into a living lab has become a reality. ICT enables now the connectivity and merging of data sets across multiple living labs and monitored homes, providing a unique infrastructure for accelerating the adoption and marketing of innovations focused on sustainable living. The LivingLab approach is gaining more and more importance as a mechanism to study and shape sustainable behavior from the public and private perspective.