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Building Research & Information
ISSN: 0961-3218 (Print) 1466-4321 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbri20
Integrated framework of home comfort:
relaxation, companionship and control
Katherine Ellsworth-Krebs, Louise Reid & Colin J. Hunter
To cite this article: Katherine Ellsworth-Krebs, Louise Reid & Colin J. Hunter (2018): Integrated
framework of home comfort: relaxation, companionship and control, Building Research &
Information, DOI: 10.1080/09613218.2017.1410375
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2017.1410375
Published online: 17 Jan 2018.
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RESEARCH PAPER
Integrated framework of home comfort: relaxation, companionship and control
Katherine Ellsworth-Krebs , Louise Reid and Colin J. Hunter
School of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK
ABSTRACT
Home comfort is posited here as the state of relaxation and wellbeing that results from
companionship and control to manage the home as desired. To date, studies of comfort have
been dominated by building and natural scientists, laboratory settings and technical approaches,
which understand comfort in physical, and primarily thermal, terms. Yet, the extensive research
on the meaning and making of home by sociologists, human geographers, historians,
anthropologists and philosophers highlights that there is much more to inhabitants’
expectations of the home than ensuring physiological ‘needs’such as warmth. The home is
imbued with emotional, social and cultural meaning, and is significant to individuals’wellbeing
in terms of it being (idealized as) a place of rest, family, continuity, control and security. For the
first time, this paper brings together home and housing scholarship to conceptualize the
findings of a qualitative study on the meanings of home comfort. In doing so, it offers a broad
empirically and conceptually informed framework of home comfort and challenges the existing
constrained notions and practices for the provision of comfort.
KEYWORDS
comfort; dwellings; home;
home comfort; homemaking;
housing; occupant
satisfaction; thermal comfort
Introduction
There are two words in their language on which these
people pride themselves, and which they say cannot be
translated. Home is the one, by which an Englishman
means his house [ …] the other word is comfort;it
means all the enjoyments and privileges of home; and
here I must confess that these proud islanders have
reason for their pride. In their social intercourse and
their modes of life they have enjoyments which we
never dream of.
(Robert Southey, Letters from England, translated from
Spanish (London, 1807), cited in Crowley, 2001,p.1;
emphasis in original)
‘Home comfort’is a common term that might be
used to describe cosy togetherness, changing into pyja-
mas after work, or the feeling that you can ‘do what you
want’in your own home (Pennartz, 1986; Wiking,
2016). Despite its everyday usage, pinning down the
meaning of home comfort has been arguably illusive
and underexplored in the academic literature. Indeed,
as the opening quotation highlights, an interest in the
meanings and experiences of home comfort, including
its variation spatially and temporally, has existed for
centuries, and this interest has not diminished. For
example, last year ‘coincided with a fascination, border-
ing on obsession, with the Danish concept of ‘hygge’
(Newman, 2017, p. 27), a term often translated to ‘cosi-
ness’in English and generally associated with the home.
The absence of a framework of home comfort is surpris-
ing considering that home comfort is widely topical and
of huge social significance. Much of people’s lives is
spent in the home; where and how they live are impor-
tant determinants of one’s social position and health
(Cieraad, 2006; Dupuis & Thorns, 1998; Giddens,
1991); and the home is the basic unit of social organiz-
ation through which social relations are created and
reproduced (e.g. gender, age relations, class differen-
tiation, ethnic inequality, regional and national cultures
and identities) (Blunt & Dowling, 2006; Saunders &
Williams, 1988). Specifically, home comfort is relevant
to questions of social equality and determining basic
standards of living (Crowley, 2001; Walker, Simcock,
& Day, 2016) as well as a key factor in architecture
and design (Chapman & Hockey, 1999; Rybczynski,
1986; Susanka, 2001). Thus, meanings of home comfort
are crucial to questions of health (e.g. ensuring physical
and mental wellbeing are afforded by an individual’s
housing situation), social equality (e.g. determining
what constitutes a minimum standard of living), and
sustainability (e.g. resources consumed to fulfil visions
of the desirable home life).
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
CONTACT Katherine Ellsworth-Krebs ke68@st-andrews.ac.uk @Ellsworth_Krebs
BUILDING RESEARCH & INFORMATION
2018
https://doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2017.1410375
Whilst comfort and home, separately, constitute con-
siderable bodies of interdisciplinary scholarship, investi-
gation of home comfort specifically is limited to a small
number of studies (Burris, Mitchell, & Haines, 2012;
Crowley, 2001; Heijs & Stringer, 1987; Madsen, 2017;
Madsen & Gram-Hanssen, 2017; Pennartz, 1986; Pineau,
1982; Rybczynski, 1986). Comfort is clearly multidimen-
sional (e.g. thermal comfort, emotional support) (Bissell,
2008; Crowley, 2001); however, in much investigation of
comfort, it is primarily assumed to be purely physical
and to mean thermal comfort (Chappells & Shove,
2005; Fanger, 1970; Nicol & Humphreys, 1973; Shove,
2003). Yet, there is clearly more to our expectations of
the home than ensuring human bodies are sufficiently
warm or cool, as the literature on the home readily
reveals (Blunt & Dowling, 2006; Brickell, 2012; Chapman
& Hockey, 1999; Flanders, 2015; Mallett, 2004). A review
of the extensive literature on the home, which includes
contributions from sociology, human geography, history,
architecture, housing studies, philosophy, psychology,
anthropology and domestic archaeology, highlights
much broader desires of home (e.g. family, privacy, nos-
talgia), but an holistic conceptualization of home com-
fort is nonetheless still absent. In fact, research
concerned with contemporary experiences of domestic
environments is dominated by quantitative analysis of
housing conditions and interior decoration as indexes
of social class, status and ethnicity, and qualitative
research on contemporary domestic spaces is scarce
(see Cieraad, 2006, for overview of key scholarship
areas: ethnology, material culture studies, consumer
studies and environmental psychology).
Therefore, the objective of this paper is to develop a
broad framework of home comfort, which for the first
time brings together home and housing scholarship to
conceptualize the findings of a qualitative study explor-
ing householders’understanding of home comfort.
While based on a study of Scottish households, this con-
ceptualization of home comfort is arguably of relevance
in other contexts due to the analysis of literature on
the meaning and making of home this paper also
introduces.
The paper is structured as follows. Following a brief
review of the existing literature on comfort, home com-
fort and homemaking, the paper progresses to consider
the implications past scholarship has for understanding
home comfort. The third section explains the data collec-
tion that employed whole-household interviews with 45
Scottish householders involving open-ended question-
ing, drawings of ‘ideal rooms’at home and house
tours. The fourth section presents 12 co-existing mean-
ings of home comfort commonly identified by house-
holders in our study and connects householders’
discussion with comfort, home comfort and home litera-
tures to develop a broader, holistic framework of home
comfort. Finally, the paper reflects on the directions
this discussion suggests for research and policy in a myr-
iad of areas from sustainability and (in)equality to hous-
ing design and architecture.
Comfort and home literature
In order to develop a conceptual framework of home
comfort, a review is presented on the existing literature
on comfort and home. Admittedly, this scholarship over-
laps considering that the home is often idealized as a
place of comfort (Blunt & Dowling, 2006; Brickell,
2012; Chapman & Hockey, 1999; Crowley, 2001; Mallett,
2004; Rybczynski, 1986), yet broadly speaking, these are
distinct areas of research. Furthermore, whilst the home
is not always connected to a physical structure that pro-
vides shelter (e.g. a person’s country, ‘a home from
home’) (Blunt & Dowling, 2006; Easthope, 2004; Mallett,
2004), this study narrows its literature review and discus-
sion to the home as house. Firstly, literature on comfort
is reviewed which is largely dominated by engineering
and building scientists framing comfort in a purely phys-
ical way. To inform our conceptual framework further,
the paper then outlines common findings from studies
explicitly studying home comfort. However, there are
only a tiny number of studies on home comfort, thus
the wider literature on home is explored, analysing key
themes that influence the process of homemaking in
order to make our framework more generalizable.
Comfort literature
Despite its everyday usage, comfort is a complex and
contested concept and one that has attracted consider-
able attention in the academic and grey literature. Com-
fort is especially topical in nursing studies focusing on
relief of discomfort, with some reflection of shifting pri-
orities in medicine between a patient’s physical and
emotional care (Kolcaba & Kolcaba, 1991; McIlveen &
Morse, 1995; Tutton & Seers, 2003). Studies of workplace
wellbeing also prioritize understanding of (dis)comfort
to ensure productivity is not negatively influenced. For
instance, exploring what temperatures impair effective
decision-making (Gaoua, Grantham, Racinais, & El Mas-
sioui, 2012), how temperature, humidity and ventilation
influence alertness or headaches (Hawkins, 1981), and
whether having a view out of a window impacts ‘business
performance’(Aries, Veitch, & Newsham, 2010). In
addition, investigation into the experience, conditions
and attributes of comfort has long been a concern of
architects, ergonomists and engineers striving to design
2K. ELLSWORTH-KREBS ET AL.
attractive and desirable products. These contributions
from building and natural sciences have gone a long
way to refining the biological, physical and physiological
factors of comfort and in explaining differences related
to age and gender (Crowley, 2001; Fanger, 1970; Shove,
2003). Arguably, this scientific, laboratory approach
dominates investigation of comfort, with the most atten-
tion going to determining how to deliver thermal com-
fort in indoor environments.
1
The publication of multiple recent special issues of
Building Research & Information (2008, 2013, 2015,
2017)
2
and numerous international Windsor Confer-
ences on ‘comfort and energy use in buildings’(2006,
2010, 2012, 2014, 2016) attest to this increasing attention
to thermal comfort and how it is defined and achieved
through building design and occupants’activity. Whilst
there is a dominance of building and natural scientists
attempting to measure and design comfortable environ-
ments, much recent work that deals explicitly with com-
fort suggests that expectations vary culturally, temporally
and spatially (Chappells & Shove, 2005; Crowley, 2001;
Shove, 2003). Following this line of reasoning, many
social scientists writing on sustainable consumption
have challenged the standardization of comfort in build-
ings (i.e. based on Fanger’s, 1970,‘comfort equation’,
which indicated that 21°C is the optimal temperature
for thermal comfort) because this distracts from cultural
ways of coping with local climactic conditions (e.g. the
siesta or changing clothing) (Chappells & Shove, 2005;
Shove, 2003) and ignores research on adaptive thermal
comfort which has demonstrated a huge range of temp-
eratures are comfortable in different climates (Nicol &
Humphreys, 1973; Oseland & Humphreys, 1994). This
body of literature is particularly compelling because it
reveals how social and cultural expectations of comfort
are co-constructed alongside material changes. Certainly,
there are a substantial number of studies showing that
the proliferation of air-conditioning and central heating
has changed expectations of ‘normal’indoor tempera-
tures as well as strategies for thermal regulation
(DECC, 2013; Hitchings & Lee, 2008; Shove, 2003;
Walker, Shove, & Brown, 2014). Indeed, in the past dec-
ade, numerous studies, including many of those ident-
ified here, have demonstrated the symbolic,
psychological and sociological aspects of thermal com-
fort (Devine-Wright, Wrapson, Henshaw, & Guy,
2014; Hards, 2013; Kuijer & Watson, 2017; Shove,
2003). Furthermore, researchers in sustainable con-
sumption have begun to attend more to the meaning
and making of sensory (Madsen & Gram-Hanssen,
2017; Madsen, 2018; Pink & Mackley, 2012) and visual
home comforts (Vannini & Taggart, 2013) as well as pro-
cesses of homemaking (Aune, 2007; Dowling & Power,
2012; Madsen, 2017; Maller, 2016), suggesting there is
more to the evolution of homes than the pursuit of
improving thermal comfort.
The above text has briefly outlined the main areas of
research on comfort (nursing studies; workplace well-
being; occupant satisfaction in building and engineering
sciences; sustainable consumption) and highlighted that
comfort is generally understood in thermal terms. We
suggest that the focus on thermal comfort overlooks
other social and psychological aspects that are part of
the ‘enjoyments and privileges of home’(Crowley,
2001, p. 1), ‘hygge’(Newman, 2017), or which may be
expected in everyday discussions of home comfort (car-
ing for family, coming home to the smells of baking).
Thus, the next section seeks to explore other potential
meanings by reviewing literature explicitly on home
comfort.
Home-comfort literature
Only a few studies explore broader meanings of residen-
tial, domestic, dwelling comfort or pleasantness (Table 1)
and, for convenience, hereafter this small body of work
will be labelled as the ‘home comfort’literature.
These home comfort texts indicate some potential
avenues to expand understandings of home comfort
(Burris et al., 2012; Crowley, 2001; Heijs & Stringer,
1987; Madsen, 2017; Madsen & Gram-Hanssen, 2017;
Pennartz, 1986; Pineau, 1982; Rybczynski, 1986). Firstly,
all these studies suggest that home comfort was not just
one thing; expectations of the home are complex, co-
existing and layered (e.g. Rybczynski’s, 1986,‘onion the-
ory of comfort’), sometimes these comforts can be con-
tradictory and yet they are still valid (Pennartz, 1986).
For example, wanting to have children at home and
spending time with one’s family can be part of home
comfort for an individual who also enjoys being alone
(Madsen, 2017; Pennartz, 1986). Furthermore, meanings
of home comfort are often interconnected and influence
one another. For instance, householders suggest that
warmth was a key aspect of home comfort, not simply
in a physical sense but also because it is part of the
home being a relaxing and inviting space (e.g. an open
fire is a source of ‘visual entertainment, relaxation and
providing security’; Pineau, 1982, p. 279). Other physical
comforts beyond thermal comfort in these home-com-
fort studies were grouped around the senses (e.g. visual,
auditory, olfactory, tactile; Heijs & Stringer, 1987; Mad-
sen & Gram-Hanssen, 2017), including having some-
where comfortable to sit, and the physiological need
for food (Burris et al., 2012; Rybczynski, 1986). Numer-
ous psychological comforts are also identified: expec-
tations of the home being a place of leisure, ease and
BUILDING RESEARCH & INFORMATION 3
entertainment (Burris et al., 2012; Madsen, 2017; Pen-
nartz, 1986; Rybczynski, 1986); personalization and free-
dom of choice are important to establishing the home as
a recognizable and familiar space (Burris et al., 2012;
Crowley, 2001; Heijs & Stringer, 1987; Pennartz, 1986;
Pineau, 1982; Rybczynski, 1986); and comfort from
socializing and social contact (Burris et al., 2012; Heijs
& Stringer, 1987; Madsen, 2017; Madsen & Gram-Hans-
sen, 2017; Pennartz, 1986; Rybczynski, 1986) are com-
mon amongst these studies.
Reviewing the limited literature that explicitly set out
to investigate domestic, residential or dwelling comfort
and pleasantness in a broader qualitative sense suggests
that meanings of home comfort are multiple and coexist-
ing; expanding physical and physiological comforts
related to the senses (e.g. visual, auditory, olfactory, tac-
tile) as well as introducing psychological comforts such
as privacy, personalization and freedom of choice. How-
ever, this is a limited body of scholarship and therefore
the much more extensive scholarship exploring the
meaning and making of home is also reviewed.
Key themes in homemaking literature
As the previous sections demonstrate, current comfort
and home-comfort literatures are insufficient, being too
narrowly defined or too empirically limited respectively
to inform a conceptual framework of home comfort.
Thus, the paper turns to the broader home scholarship,
summarizing the findings of our review of the literature
on homemaking and the meaning of home (see Ells-
worth-Krebs, 2017, pp. 43–54, for a more detailed
account). Five key themes central to understanding the
meanings and experiences of home, and thus home com-
fort, emerged from this review: perceptions of the home
as ideal; centrality of the hearth; the importance of
family; privacy; and gender. These homemaking themes
were developed from a qualitative synthesis of the litera-
ture (Barnett-Page & Thomas, 2009), which involved
keyword searches (e.g. ‘home’,‘the meaning of home’,
‘the making of home’and synonyms) in various data-
bases (e.g. Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science)
and journals (e.g. Housing Studies;Housing,Theory &
Society;Home Cultures) to identify relevant writings.
These sources were thematically analysed and included
peer-reviewed journal articles as well as books and grey
literature (e.g. doctoral theses, conference papers and
research centre reports). Texts were included in this
qualitative synthesis because they offered their own the-
matic analysis of the meaning or making of home or
because they offered an alternative perspective. For
instance, critiquing the absence of disability (Imrie,
2004), homosexuality (Gorman-Murray, 2007) or non-
Anglo-Saxon perspectives (Soaita, 2015) drew attention
to taken-for-granted themes in this literature. These
themes consolidate a great deal of reading on home
and housing studies, and despite the brevity in explain-
ing them below, their identification in this way is impor-
tant to advance the study of occupant satisfaction and
home comfort.
Table 1. Literature on ‘home comfort’.
Source: author (year) and title ordered from the most to the
least cited Meanings of comfort mentioned
Rybczynski (1986): Home: a short history of an idea Convenience, efficiency, leisure, ease, pleasure, domesticity, intimacy and privacy
Crowley (2001): The invention of comfort: sensibilities and design in
early modern Britain and early America
Comfort was a moral term indicating personal support; material connotations were more
likely to be negative stemming from Classical and Christian disparagements of luxury.
Part of the 18th-century consumer revolution was redefining comfort as a right and
obligation to improve people’s physical circumstances
Pennartz (1986): Atmosphere at home: a qualitative approach Empirical study of 25 Dutch households: communicating with one another; being
accessible to one another; relaxing after having finished work; being free to do what one
wants; being occupied, absence of boredom
Pineau (1982): The psychological meaning of comfort Ordered most to least important in an empirical study of interviews of French women:
personalization, freedom of choice, space and warmth
Heijs and Stringer (1987): Comfort as a property of the dwelling: a
conceptual analysis
Physical: visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, kinaesthetic. Psychological: privacy, freedom of
choice, extent of control, opportunities for establishing a recognizable place, quietness,
social contact
Burris et al. (2012): Exploring comfort in the home: towards an
interdisciplinary framework for domestic comfort
Ordered most to least important in an empirical study of English households: thermal
comfort, surroundings (tidiness/cleanliness, security/familiarity, aesthetics), physical
comfort (sitting, changing clothing), entertainment (television, reading, socializing,
hobbies/self), food, state (peace/quiet, stress free), visual (lighting)
Madsen and Gram-Hanssen (2017): Understanding comfort and
sense in social practice theory
Empirical study of 14 Danish households in suburban single-family housing focused on the
senses: warmth and coolness, air (cooking smells, fresh air), light, (daylight, lamps,
candles), materials (soft furniture, adequate space)
Madsen (2017): The comfortable home and energy consumption Empirical study of three Danish men: warmth, soft furniture, relaxation, privacy, social
relations with the family
4K. ELLSWORTH-KREBS ET AL.
Home as ideal
The home is entangled with all sorts of ideal represen-
tations and models of ‘homeliness’(Blunt & Dowling,
2006; Brickell, 2012; Chapman & Hockey, 1999; Flan-
ders, 2015; Gorman-Murray, 2007; Mallett, 2004; Per-
kins, Thorns, Winstanley, & Newton, 2002;
Rybczynski, 1986; Sixsmith, 1986; Somerville, 1992;
Valentine, 2001). The importance of the home as ideal
does not assume that the home is actually, or always,
positive in reality; in fact, this is a common point of cri-
tique in home literature (Blunt & Dowling, 2006; Brick-
ell, 2012; Gorman-Murray, 2007; Imrie, 2004; Mallett,
2004). This home-as-ideal theme is an important remin-
der that householders’discussion of home comfort may
often reflect an imagined or fantasized vision of home
life that is not achieved in reality (e.g. Ideal Home Exhi-
bitions, home and lifestyle magazines and home make-
over television series can encourage a list of intended
home improvement plans and dreams) (see Chapman
& Hockey, 1999, for a great discussion of Ideal Homes).
Hearth
The hearth is central to the home, connected to ideas of
warmth, relaxation, comfort and a welcoming atmos-
phere for visitors (Crowley, 2001; Flanders, 2015; Somer-
ville, 1992; Valentine, 2001). This is the second theme
because it was literally, as well as figuratively, the centre
of the home until at least the 16th century as the com-
mon design of European domestic spaces was a hall
with a central fire (Crowley, 2001; Flanders, 2015). The
hearth’s importance in the home, therefore, goes beyond
warmth and influences the sense that the home is wel-
coming and a place of relaxation; this relates to, but is
distinct from, the way in which thermal comfort is con-
ceived by building and natural scientists as discussed
above.
Family
The family comes as the third theme because, like the
hearth, it is rooted in the meanings and making of the
home. Indeed, the family is such an important aspect
of home (Beeton, 1861; Blunt & Dowling, 2006; Flanders,
2015; Moore, 2000; Perkins et al., 2002; Smith, 1994;
Soaita, 2015;Somerville, 1992; Valentine, 2001) that
the two are often conflated in the housing literature
(Gorman-Murray, 2007; Mallett, 2004). Drawing atten-
tion to the ‘family’in home comfort and occupant satis-
faction research emphasizes that comfort is not always
about the individual: negotiation and compromise
importantly influence an individual’s experience.
Privacy
The fourth theme is privacy because the home is gener-
ally expected to be a place of control (Blunt & Dowling,
2006; Brickell, 2012; Mallett, 2004; Perkins et al., 2002;
Rybczynski, 1986; Saunders & Williams, 1988; Sixsmith,
1986; Soaita, 2015; Somerville, 1992; Valentine, 2001).
This sense of stability, or ontological security, is a base
around which identities are constructed, and in housing
research this is understood to be a significant psychologi-
cal necessity in life (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998; Giddens,
1991; Saunders, 1989). However, an emphasis on per-
sonal privacy may hint at an Anglo-Saxon framing of
homemaking as individualism, independence and self-
reliance are emphasized in studies of British homes, yet
other cultures are more group oriented emphasizing
family, collectivism and interdependence (Ozaki, 2002).
Gender
Finally, in housing and home scholarship the expectation
and experience of the home is accepted to be highly gen-
dered, in the sense that where the home is a place of rest
for a man, it is a place of work for women (Flanders,
2015; Mallett, 2004; Perkins et al., 2002;Valentine,
2001). If women are (traditionally) charged with the
responsibility of making and maintaining the home as
well as the wellbeing of the family (Brickell, 2012;Flanders,
2015;Valentine,2001), then their choices and activities are
particularly important for understanding everyday prac-
tices in the home. In emphasizing gendered differences,
our intention is not to reproduce stereotypes, but to
acknowledge that what makes the home pleasant may be
different for men and women (Chapman & Hockey, 1999).
This short account of key aspects affecting the mean-
ing, making and experience of home can be criticized
for its reliance on an oversimplified account of an exten-
sive body of literature. However, the main point to take
forward is that much more is expected of the home
than offering shelter or meeting certain physical or phys-
iological ‘needs’: the home is idealized as a haven of relax-
ation, psychological connection and companionship,
security and safety. Besides advances in central heating,
indoor plumbing and electricity (Rybczynski, 1986), the
materiality of homes has evolved as a result of complex
social changes in family structures; perceptions of entitle-
ment to privacy, privatization and governments’role in
housing;and working patterns of men and women (Crow-
ley, 2001;Flanders,2015). In order to understand expec-
tations of home comfort, therefore, we must engage
with these broader social and cultural shifts that are over-
looked by dominant technical approaches.
This section has briefly outlined the basis for develop-
ing a conceptual framework of home comfort. The build-
ing and natural sciences dominate the research of
BUILDING RESEARCH & INFORMATION 5
comfort and occupant satisfaction, narrowly investi-
gating the corporeal experiences of thermal comfort as
a measurable and standardized product that can be deliv-
ered through technical developments and devices,
whereas the limited number of studies on home comfort
suggest it has both physical and psychological facets, that
meanings are interconnected, and that desires can be
contradictory but still valid. A review of the wider litera-
ture on home and homemaking emphasized that there
are common historical and cultural perceptions of
what a home is, could or should be (home as ideal,
hearth, family, privacy and gender), and these themes
have persistently shaped the design and meaning of the
home. This sets the stage to explore home comfort
further empirically, and the paper now turns to outlining
the methods adopted in our investigation.
Methods
Qualitative research was deemed a necessary starting point
because this was an exploratory study and surprisingly lit-
tle information exists on the meanings or variables of
home comfort. Indeed, this study responds to calls for
more in-depth, interpretivist studies that offer alternative
ways of thinking (Schweber & Leiringer, 2012;Summer-
field & Lowe, 2012) in order to overcome ‘the relatively
narrow understanding of the “social”in research on energy
and buildings’(Schweber & Leiringer, 2012,p.490).This
qualitative study explored what homeowners want from
their homes and what ‘home comfort’meant to them. It
involved open-ended questioning with the whole house-
hold at the same time, drawings of ‘ideal rooms’at
home, and house tours with 21 Scottish households and
45 householders between February and June 2014 (Table
2). This study was part of a research project interested in
energy demand and connecting expectations of home
with explaining changing patterns of domestic energy
demand (Ellsworth-Krebs, 2017), and participants were
chosen for being homeowners who had made efforts to
save energy either by investing in improving the efficiency
of their house and/or installing microgeneration technol-
ogies (e.g. solar thermal panels, photovoltaic panels, bio-
mass boilers, heat pumps, wood stoves and wind turbines).
As a result of this recruitment, participants were predo-
minantly white professional couples who were relatively
advantaged in terms of income and health. The aim of
this methodology was not to establish a universal defi-
nition or prioritization of meanings of home comfort, as
the sample is too small and non-representative, but to
generate rich data and a diversity of meanings. This
does not overlook that meanings, their understanding
and relative importance depend on the context. For
example, expectations of home life may vary if Norwegian
or American homeowners were involved in a similar
investigation because their norms are shaped by different
cultural and historical contexts. In fact, this is one limit-
ation of this study, as our recognition of cultural variation
suggests that our broader conceptualization of home com-
fort may not be universal. Participants in this study were
predominantly white British; only one household was
from the United States and had been living in Scotland
for fewer than five years. Although the authors have
attempted to make their findings more generalizable by
reading widely on experiences of home in other countries
(see above), this study and the majority of research on
home and housing take places in Europe, Australia and
North America (Blunt & Dowling, 2006;Flanders,2015;
Mallett, 2004). Subsequently, similar investigations are
recommended to see the extent to which the themes of
homemaking and meanings of home comfort resonate
in other countries.
Whole-household interviews, the drawing activity and
house tours were generally 45–120 minutes in duration,
and they were all recorded and transcribed. To make
sense of participants’understandings of home comfort,
analysis began by focusing on responses to ‘What does
comfort mean to you?’and ‘What do you do to be com-
fortable?’as well as analysing the drawings of ideal
rooms for common features. This thematic analysis
began with in-depth line-by-line coding by hand and
then the data were managed in the qualitative analysis
software Nvivo to facilitate an iterative process to gener-
ate codes (Charmaz, 2014). Analysing transcripts for evi-
dence of the homemaking themes (e.g. gendered
differences in discussion of comfort or mention of family
in relation to comfort) then structured another round of
analysis that drew together discussion from the inter-
views (e.g. including ideal drawings and house tours)
that had not been incorporated in the first stage
(which had analysed answers to explicit questions
about comfort). The coding was validated continuously
by cross-coding random parts of the material and cor-
recting for inconsistencies, and the researchers met reg-
ularly to discuss and review the development of open and
axial coding (Charmaz, 2014). The ideal drawings and
house tours were considered important for directing par-
ticipants’discussion to the materiality and design of the
home, and connecting social and material aspects that
influenced home comfort, e.g. explaining that having
couches or cushy chairs related to relaxing, socializing
and being a good host. This is particularly relevant as
meanings of home are often recognized as embedded
in the materiality of the home: objects embody mem-
ories, relationships and identity (Belk, 1992; Blunt &
Dowling, 2006; Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-Halton,
1981; Pink & Mackley, 2012). Hence, an investigation
6K. ELLSWORTH-KREBS ET AL.
of home comfort is enhanced by it taking place in the
home to prompt reflection and discussion.
To protect confidentiality, all participants are ident-
ified by pseudonyms (age and household number). Ethi-
cal approval was sought and awarded by the University
of St Andrews Ethics Committee.
Results and discussion: meanings of home
comfort
This section presents the results of householders’under-
standing of home comfort to begin to create a conceptual
framework. Twelve common meanings emerged. Table 3
summarizes these meanings, whether they were
explained as physical or psychological by participants,
their relative importance, and examples of what these
aspects of home comfort meant to householders.
The following sections present the 12 meanings of
home comfort by category, physical, psychological and
physical–psychological depending on whether they
were explained as physical or psychological by partici-
pants. Thus, this begins to move the understanding of
home comfort beyond a physical focus and physical–
psychological binary. Furthermore, this section compares
Table 2. Sample: household characteristics, house type and age.
Participants
House age and
type Household type Age (years) Occupation Home
Katie and Steve 1964–2004,
detached
Couple, no children at home 60s Retired, full-time employment 1
Amy and Steve Before 1964, semi-
detached
Couple, no children 40s and 50s Part-time employment, full-time
employment
2
Michael 2004–2014, semi-
detached
Single 80s Retired 3
Emma, Andrew,
Alice
a
and Jason
a
Before 1964, semi-
detached
Couple, two children at home 40s and under
10
Part-time employment, full-time
employment, student, student
4
Sarah, Harold, Ailsa and
Elizabeth
1964–2004,
detached
Couple, one child and one
parent at home
50s, 10s and 80s Full-time employment, retired, part-time
employment, retired
5
Lisa 1964–2004, semi-
detached
Single 60s Retired 6
Kelly Before 1964,
detached
Single, no children at home 60s Self-employed/part-time 7
Louise and Helen Before 1964,
terraced
Single, one child at home 50s and 20s Sick/disabled, self-employed 8
Pat and Oliver Before 1964,
detached
Couple, no children at home 60s Retired, retired 9
Fiona
a
and Sean Before 1964,
detached
Couple, no children at home 50s Part-time employment, full-time
employment
10
Sharon and Aaron Before 1964,
detached
Couple, no children at home 50s Part-time employment, part-time
employment
11
Stacy and Darren 1964–2004,
detached
Couple, no children at home 80s Retired, retired 12
Sue, Brian and Jan
a
Before 1964,
detached
Couple, no children at home 50s and 20s Self-employed, self-employed, student 13
Rachel, Phil, Rory and
Richard
Before 1964,
detached
Couple, two children at home 40s, 60s, and
under 10
Full-time employment, part-time
employment, student, student
14
Rhona, Keith, Esther
a
and
Isaac
a
Before 1964,
terraced
Couple, no children at home 70s and 20s Retired, retired, student, student 15
Mandy, Rob, Ben and
Stuart
Before 1964,
terraced
Couple, two children at home 40s, 10s and
under 10
Student, full-time employment, student,
student
16
Maggie 2004–14, detached Single 80s Retired 17
Shona, Bill, Gabriel and
Isolde
2004–14, detached Couple, two children at home 30s and under
10
Self-employed, self-employed, student,
student
18
Mary and Arnold 1964–2004,
detached
Couple, no children at home 70s Retired, retired 19
Catriona and Lucy Before 1964,
detached
Couple, no children at home 70s Retired, retired 20
Nancy and Jack 2004–14, detached Couple, no children at home 60s Retired, retired 21
a
Householders not interviewed. It was easiest for the parents of H4 to do an interview after their children went to bed; in H10 the wife spent part of the week at
another residence for work purposes and was not available on the interview day. Lodgers were not seen as part of the household (H13 and H15), although they
were commented on during the interviews and impacted management of the home.
BUILDING RESEARCH & INFORMATION 7
the literature on comfort, home comfort and home (dis-
cussed above) to the way participants understood com-
fort in the home; exploring the extent to which the five
homemaking themes (home as ideal, hearth, family, priv-
acy and gender) resonated in householders’discussion of
comfort, ideal rooms and desired future improvements.
Family and privacy emerged more prominently in this
process, and have strong parallels with two meanings of
home comfort identified by participants (i.e. companion-
ship and control respectively); due to the scope of this
paper, these two themes are focused on below (for an
analysis of how all five homemaking themes were dis-
cussed by participants, see Ellsworth-Krebs, 2017,
pp. 105–121). To be clear, this is important to developing
a framework of home comfort because it connects a small
group of Scottish householders’understanding of home
comfort to broader historical and cultural narratives
around the meaning and making of home.
Physical home comforts: thermal comfort, tactile
comfort, physiological comfort, and odour and
fresh air
Participants commonly identified four meanings of
home comfort that were spoken about in a physical
sense: thermal comfort, tactile comfort, physiological
comfort, and odour and fresh air. This section presents
evidence of the importance of these meanings to house-
holders and in so doing begins to hint at the
interconnections between meanings of home comfort
as well as the false binary between physical and psycho-
logical expectations of the home.
Thermal comfort, or warmth, was mentioned in all
the household interviews: ‘Yeah, like being warm’
(Rory, 8, H14); ‘Warmth must be one of the prime
reasons’(Maggie, 80, H17). As noted above, the focus
on thermal comfort is also prominent in studies of com-
fort and occupant satisfaction. However, thermal com-
fort was also affected by other physical expectations of
comfort in the home, as elaborated below. Olfactory
comfort is a common consideration in the development
of building standards because these impact thermal com-
fort and health conditions (e.g. from damp) (Rudge,
2012). Similar to occupant satisfaction scholarship, par-
ticipants did not go beyond this physical understanding
to connect odours with more social or psychological
meanings of comfort. For instance, participants did not
speak about satisfaction from the smells of cooking
(e.g. coming home and smelling your favourite meal)
or a sense of familiarity from everyday smells (e.g. laun-
dry detergent), which appeared important in Madsen
and Gram-Hanssen’s(2017) study of residential comfort
and writings on ‘hygge’(Wiking, 2016). Furthermore,
tactile and thermal comforts were also closely linked as
householders commented on times where tactile con-
siderations either undermined or enhanced thermal sat-
isfaction. For instance, some participants talked about
choosing clothes for warmth in the winter and
Table 3. Meanings of home comfort, organized vertically from most to least discussed.
Meanings Category
Approximate proportion of the
interviews Examples from interviews (number of participating household)
Thermal comfort Physical All Not too hot, not too cold (12). A draught-free house (4).
Woolly slippers (4)
Relaxation Physical–
psychological
Two-thirds Where you are at peace or where you are at rest (16). A nice place to sit
and relax (17)
Companionship Psychological Half Watching the kids being happy (4). The right company (12)
Control Physical–
psychological
Half Being able to do what you enjoy (8). Having my own room (14)
Tactile comfort Physical Half Soft furnishings (11). Fluffy blanket (14). Warmth and softness (18)
Visual comfort Physical–
psychological
Half Looking at nice things (9). Appropriate lighting (19)
Mental wellbeing Psychological One-third Comfortable in your own skin (11). Not feeling too rushed or
overwhelmed (16)
Auditory comfort Physical–
psychological
One-third Quiet […] background of peace [and to] choose whether I have music
on or not (13)
Familiarity Physical–
psychological
One-third That feeling of relaxation […] which is due to having familiar things
around you (2)
Contributory
comfort
Psychological One-fifth Not costing the earth (19). Benefit other people (12)
Physiological
comfort
Physical One-fifth Not being hungry (20). Not being injured or experiencing physical pain
(10)
Odour and fresh air Physical A few Simply hot can be very uncomfortable [for example] some sort of sealed
fuggy box (5)
8K. ELLSWORTH-KREBS ET AL.
complained about layers feeling confining or certain fab-
rics being itchy.
Sometimes I will say, ‘look I got socks on, it keeps my
feet from getting crystal-y cold’, but [my husband]
doesn’t like the feel of socks. (Mandy, 47, H16)
This connection between tactile considerations influen-
cing thermal comfort was also raised in the home-comfort
scholarship (Heijs & Stringer, 1987;Madsen&Gram-
Hanssen, 2017), partly because of a trade-off between
soft materials which are more pleasant to feel and often
warmer and hard materials that require less maintenance,
but does not commonly appear in comfort scholarship.
Tactile comfort was also significant as participants drew
attention to the desire for bedding, seating and clothing
being pleasing to the touch, and the importance of nice
furniture is highlighted by the drawings and discussion
of ideal rooms because large armchairs and comfy couches
were a feature in the majority of drawings (Figure 1).
Finally, part of comfort depended on meeting the
physiological need for food and ‘not being hungry’
(Lucy, 70, H20) as well as ‘not being injured or experien-
cing physical pain’(Sean, 50, H10). Food was mainly
mentioned as a physical need instead of for its psycho-
logical benefits, such as sentimental memories of, and
connection to, past meals, people or places, which was
Figure 1. Ideal drawings emphasizing the importance of seating and aesthetics: H4 (above) and H12 (below).
BUILDING RESEARCH & INFORMATION 9
stressed as part of homeliness and comfort by some
home comfort and ‘hygge’literature (Madsen, 2017;
Wiking, 2016).
This section has briefly outlined four meanings of
home comfort that were explained in a physical way by
participants, yet this has also begun to highlight how
these are more complex and could be understood to
have a psychological influence on householders’experi-
ence of home. The next section presents the psychologi-
cal home comforts identified by participants in this
study.
Psychological home comforts: mental wellbeing,
companionship and contributory comfort
Three expectations of home comfort were explained in
psychological terms: mental wellbeing, companionship
and contributory comfort. Mental wellbeing, being
happy or inner peace were stressed to be more fundamen-
tal than other (i.e. physical) meanings of home comfort:
‘Not just being physically comfortable but being mentally
comfortable and happy’(Helen, 24, H8). The importance
of mental wellbeing relates to historical meanings of com-
fort which were much more emotionally centred, relating
more to consolation, mental satisfaction, inner peace, sup-
port and encouragement (Crowley, 2001); yet mental well-
being is rarely explicitly mentioned in the home-comfort
or comfort literatures (as discussed above).
Companionship was the most discussed psychological
comfort, and having ‘the right company’(Stacy, 81, H12)
was a key part of participants’initial answer to ‘What
does comfort mean to you?’:
Comfort to me means being able to see people.
(Jack, 62, H21)
Definitely, for me, having my children around me, my
family, my close family is a big part of comfort for me
[…] when all four of us are in the house it just feels
totally right, it doesn’t matter what is going on. But bet-
ter still if it is warm and cosy.
(Sue, 55, H13)
Furthermore, about half the ideal room drawings fea-
tured lots of seating or large tables (Figure 2). These
drawings demonstrate the importance of companionship
because an ideal room in the home was often expected to
be shared and had features that enabled householders to
accommodate guests, another reminder that the design
and materiality of the home affects psychological and
social aspects of home life. The importance of compa-
nionship, socializing and sharing the home is similarly
documented in the literature on home (Blunt and Dowl-
ing, 2006; Dowling and Power, 2012; Flanders, 2015;
Ozaki, 2002), but is only included in a couple of the
writings on home comfort (Burris, 2014; Heijs & Strin-
ger, 1987; Madsen, 2017; Madsen & Gram-Hanssen,
2017; Rybczynski, 1986). Notably, the attention to com-
panionship links to the centrality of family in the home
and homemaking scholarship (as noted above). Indeed,
wanting the home to be a communal space arose spon-
taneously in nearly all the whole-household interviews:
I love having a living area which includes kitchen, din-
ing, and sitting. So that I didn’t have to retreat from
the company to go to the kitchen. Everybody is in
there together. That was very important to me.
(Stacy, 81, H12)
Subsequently, companionship should arguably be
more central to comfort and occupant satisfaction policy
and research, and this paper imagines (see below) fresh
intervention ideas that might translate from this shift.
Only three multiple-occupancy households did not men-
tion the importance of sharing the home (H9–H11).
Interestingly, two of these interviews (H9 and H10)
occurred with only one member of the household,
because their partner was unavailable, and this may be
an indication of the impact of the methodological
choices made in our study.
Related to companionship and wellbeing was also the
comfort that came from contributing to the wellbeing of
someone or a cause (i.e. contributory comfort). This is
because making others happy (e.g. family, friends, local
community) was a source of comfort. For instance, Dar-
ren explained that for him and his wife, comfort was
‘Christian faith. It is active and using it to benefit other
people’(87, H12). The home then was a space that
householders wanted to ‘use’for causes they valued,
again alluding to the importance of the physical house.
There is little mention of contributory comfort, or simi-
lar concepts, in the other home-comfort literature and
this may also reflect an individualistic framing of data
collection in the empirical studies (e.g. not taking the
household as a basic unit of analysis) or this may also
be explained to an extent by a cultural bias, as Ozaki
(2002) demonstrated that individualism, independence
and self-reliance are emphasized in studies of British
homes. Contributory comfort also related to discussions
around the importance of being a good host and was
strongly connected to mental wellbeing, demonstrating
that home comfort is not just about meeting personal
and physical needs.
This section has unpacked meanings of home comfort
that appear largely absent in the occupant-satisfaction
and comfort literature and yet were stressed by partici-
pants to be vital. Whilst participants articulated mental
wellbeing, companionship and contributory comfort
in psychological terms, these are also affected by the
10 K. ELLSWORTH-KREBS ET AL.
security of having a physical house to call one’s home,
the design and layout of rooms, and artefacts for hosting
guests (e.g. seating and open-plan spaces to encourage
spending time together). Indeed, Csikszentmihalyi and
Rochberg-Halton’s(1981) study of the ‘most cherished
objects in the home’highlights how these are valued
not for their functional or utilitarian purposes, but for
their embodiment of personal achievement or ideal iden-
tity (e.g. mental wellbeing), connections to family and
friends (e.g. companionship) and ties to the past (e.g.
familiarity). These psychological home comforts cannot
be simply separated from the materiality of the home.
Physical–psychological home comforts:
relaxation, control, visual comfort, auditory
comfort and familiarity
In the occupant satisfaction scholarship, aspects or
meanings of comfort are generally expressed as being
purely physical or psychological. However, as this
Figure 2. Ideal drawings emphasizing communal spaces: H13 (above) and H21 (below).
BUILDING RESEARCH & INFORMATION 11
paper has repeatedly suggested, there is a blurry bound-
ary between the two and, therefore, this section presents
the meanings of home comfort that were explained by
participants in both physical and psychological ways.
Five physical–psychological home comforts were com-
monly identified by householders in this study: relax-
ation, control, visual comfort, auditory comfort and
familiarity.
Relaxation was a ubiquitous term in the whole-house-
hold interviews, and arose spontaneously. For example,
for many participants relaxation was a key part of initial
answers to ‘What does comfort mean to you?’:‘Feeling
relaxed […] it is as much about mental relaxation as it
is necessarily physical’(Amy, 47, H2). Furthermore,
being able to ‘relax’was the main purpose that arose
when householders explained for what they would use
their ideal rooms: ‘Just somewhere that I could relax
and use the computer to work or to play and then also
just relax and enjoy’(Helen, 24 H8); ‘A nice place to
sit and relax, watch television, listen to music, read,
that sort of thing’(Maggie, 80, H17).
Householders often identified particular activities as
‘relaxing’(watching television, using the computer,
sleeping and reading), but also suggested that relaxation
was predicated on meeting (some of) the other aspects of
comfort. Other home comfort studies indicated relax-
ation as a frequent term used in response to questions
about the meaning of comfort (Burris, 2014; Madsen,
2017), yet for the most part is not explicitly mentioned
in studies of comfort and home comfort. Nonetheless,
this paper raises the importance of relaxation in occu-
pant satisfaction and comfort studies, considering its
ubiquity in these whole-household interviews and its
alignment with the Oxford English Dictionary’s defi-
nition of home comfort as ‘a domestic amenity which
contributes to physical ease and wellbeing’(OED, 2016).
Being able to do what you want or having some sense
of control was another important physical–psychological
Figure 3. Different preferences in decorating and managing the home in H21: Nancy’s space (above) and Jack’s (below).
12 K. ELLSWORTH-KREBS ET AL.
aspect of home comfort: ‘Being able to do what I want in
my own house really’(Sharon, 55, H11). Control is
already considered important in comfort studies,
especially in terms of householders being able to manage
heating systems adequately, whereas in this study ‘being
able to do what you want’was often raised in acknowl-
edgement of intra-household interactions. For example,
children and teenagers spoke most about comfort in
relation to having their own room, often elaborating
on security systems and locks as integral features of
their ideal rooms because these features protect the
space within the home that they have more control over:
Imaginary room! […] guard doors so no one can disturb
me [dad laughed]. What? You guys always walk in at the
most inconvenient times.
(Stuart, 9, H16)
Certainly, the importance of control was not limited to
children and many householders commented on a desire
to have enough space so that they could ‘all live in [their]
individual zones without massively treading on each
other’(Harold, 53, H5). This was a major consideration
for Nancy and Jack designing their new home:
Two retired people who want to carry on doing their
own thing, but living together as well. So that was reflec-
tive in the design of the house. […] The fundamental
difference is that I am extremely messy and untidy
and Nancy is extremely tidy.
(Jack, 62, H21)
This desire is apparent in the design of their upstairs,
which is a mirror image, with two offices and two en-
suite bedrooms (Figure 3). These rooms reflect the indi-
vidual’s tastes and character, with Nancy’s space being
less cluttered (Figure 3, top) and simple and Jack’s
space more cosy and filled (Figure 3, bottom). After ther-
mal comfort, control appeared most in academic litera-
ture on home comfort (Crowley, 2001; Heijs &
Stringer, 1987; Pineau, 1982; Rybczynski, 1986) and
home (Aune, 2007; Blunt & Dowling, 2006; Brickell,
2012; Mallett, 2004; Ozaki, 2002; Perkins et al., 2002;
Saunders & Williams, 1988; Sixsmith, 1986; Somerville,
1992; Valentine, 2001). For instance, in Pineau’s(1982)
study three of the four key meanings of home comfort
related to this theme of control: personalization, freedom
of choice and space (the fourth was warmth). Similarly,
Heijs and Stringer’s(1987) review of the literature ident-
ified several aspects of psychological comfort, with all
arguably being related to control: privacy, freedom of
choice, extent of control, opportunities for establishing
a recognizable place, quietness and social contacts.
Indeed, participants’articulation of the importance of
control, as ‘being able to do what you want’, is underwrit-
ten by the homemaking theme of privacy. The desire for
companionship creates tensions over sharing spaces
within the home and much of the participants’discus-
sion around the 12 meanings of home comfort highlights
differences in preferences and other householders every-
day activities (e.g. watching television, napping, being
noisy) and management of material features of the
home (e.g. artwork, lighting) that caused conflicts:
I find it quite stressful some evenings when you [hus-
band] are watching television and the house is full of
inane noise and yet none of the other rooms are
rooms that I actually want to go and sit in because
they are rather cold or physically uncomfortable or
this is the room with the fire and the cat.
(Amy, 47, H2)
Privacy has been a driving force in (re)shaping homes’
layouts, everyday activities and relationships within the
household (e.g. increasing the number of bedrooms,
appeal (or not) of open-plan kitchens) (Cieraad, 2006;
Flanders, 2015; Rybczynski, 1986), and this paper pro-
poses that this framing of control (i.e. in relation to
intra-household dynamics) should be more prominent
in studies of occupant satisfaction and comfort. Corre-
spondingly, what this might translate into for building
research and policy is considered below in the fifth
section.
Related to control, another aspect of home comfort was
everyday life being (somewhat) consistent and stable,
related to having familiar routines and objects in the
home: ‘Partly that feeling of relaxation, some of which is
due to furnishings, and some of which is due to having
familiar things around you’(Amy, 47, H2). This aspect
of home comfort was somewhat difficult for participants
to explain because it is part of what ‘feels like home’
(Rachel, 45, H14). Rachel explained the significance of
familiarity in terms of the difference between a hotel
and a home. A hotel might have all the amenities one
could want to be comfortable, e.g. being warm, quiet,
aesthetically pleasing, affording a sense of privacy and
containing a cosy bed. Yet, a hotel room rarely has the
same sense of homely comfort, in part because it lacks
familiar objects. This is a similar finding to the home-
comfort literature: without familiar objects and routines,
places were described as ‘sterile’,‘impersonal’and ‘anon-
ymous’(Burris, 2014; Heijs & Stringer, 1987; Pineau,
1982). Furthermore, stability in the home is stressed in
the housing literature because it is understood as an inte-
gral psychological necessity of life and a base around
which identities are constructed (Dupuis & Thorns,
1998; Giddens, 1991; Saunders, 1989; Smith, 1994).
The above examples of control also relate to house-
holders’discussions of visual comfort because exerting
some influence on aesthetics influenced householders’
BUILDING RESEARCH & INFORMATION 13
experience of the home. While participants spoke about
visual comfort in a physical sense (e.g. having enough,
or the right, light for their eyes and the task), there was
much more to visual comfort than lighting. For instance,
the desire for natural light is also linked to the visual plea-
sure of having a view and this was mentioned by many
participants when discussing their ideal rooms (Figure
3). Moreover, while artificial lighting was mainly dis-
cussed in a functional sense to enable householders to
carry out particular activities indoors, the atmosphere
and mood of the room could also be affected:
I like the softer lamp lighting in a room like this that you
are just sitting in the evening because I think it creates a
better atmosphere than very bright overhead lights.
(Sarah, 54, H5)
Moreover, several participants commented on the
psychological comfort related to having familiar objects
and pictures as reminders of past events and positive
memories. For example, during the house tour one par-
ticipant stressed the importance of her wall unit for dis-
playing mementos: ‘the ornaments and bits and pieces
all mean something in my life’(Lisa, 69, H6). Display-
ing reminders of holidays, friends and families is an
important part of visual comfort and related to estab-
lishing recognizable and personal spaces within the
home. Householders’discussion of visual comfort
thus diverged from most research on lighting or visual
comfort, which is related to physiological or physical
investigation (e.g. colour and brightness). For instance,
research has investigated how the colour of artificial
lighting affects thermal comfort (e.g. bluerlightsmake
people feel colder than more red hues) (Fanger,
Breum, & Jerking, 1977) or the impact to workplace
productivity.
Finally, auditory comfort was also an important facet
of control because householders commented on the
comfort that came from being able to control noise levels
or music choices. Auditory considerations or acoustic
quality are a common consideration in terms of occu-
pant satisfaction, considering occupant satisfaction
draws from the workplace context and poor acoustics
could affect productivity. Some participants spoke
about too much noise being a source of discomfort, but
mostly participants suggested that ‘music would be one
of the attractions of a nice comfortable room’(Oliver,
66, H9). Thus, auditory comfort was not simply physical
but also was linked to wellbeing and psychological
concerns.
This section has explored five physical–psychological
meanings of home comfort, suggesting that many expec-
tations of the home are interlinked and cannot be
thought about simply in physical or psychological ways.
Re-defining home comfort around relaxation,
companionship and control
The preceding sections revealed that while thermal com-
fort was important and mentioned in all the interviews,
other concerns are commonly significant to satisfaction
in the home. Relaxation was the most common synonym
for comfort: it was what householders wanted to do in
their ideal rooms and what often gave meaning to
other desirable aspects of home life. Indeed, participants
explicitly connected relaxation with all the other mean-
ings of comfort, except odour and fresh air: tactile (e.g.
comfortable seating), visual (e.g. mood lighting as
opposed to bright ‘task’lighting), familiarity (e.g. having
your stuff and usual routines), thermal (e.g. cosy and
warm), control (e.g. ‘doing what you want’), companion-
ship (e.g. socializing), mental wellbeing (e.g. at ease),
physiological (e.g. relaxing with a hot drink or alcoholic
beverage), auditory (e.g. listening to music), and con-
tributory comfort (e.g. ensuring guests feel welcomed).
Furthermore, the similarity between the homemaking
themes of family and privacy and the home comforts
of companionship and control identified by participants
hints that these should be more central to conceptualiz-
ations of home comfort. Arguably, other meanings of
home comfort are negotiated as part of the desire for
companionship and control. For example, a householder
may turn up the thermostat to make sure their guests are
warm (i.e. contributory comfort and companionship),
even if they prefer a lower temperature normally (i.e.
familiarity) or use blankets (i.e. tactile). Moreover, a
householder not getting to listen to their preferred
radio station (i.e. auditory comfort) or have the type of
lighting they prefer (i.e. visual comfort) may be a greater
source of discomfort because it undermines their sense of
control. Following this, the paper argues that home com-
fort is relaxation and wellbeing that results from compa-
nionship and control to manage the home as desired.
This broader conceptualization of home comfort
moves beyond commonly imagined interventions in
housing quality around temperature, air quality, noise
levels, lighting and energy efficiency, and the final sec-
tion considers how this might inspire studies that gener-
ate fresh ideas that account for wider social trends that
impact the experience of housing.
Conclusions and policy implications
The dominance of technical approaches in comfort
research, and isolation from home and housing scholar-
ship more generally, offers little in the way of guidance
that is sensitive to the social, cultural and psychological
expectations of the home. Subsequently, this paper
14 K. ELLSWORTH-KREBS ET AL.
drew together literature on comfort, home comfort and
home with an empirical study of 21 Scottish households
on the meaning of home comfort. Twelve meanings of
home comfort were identified and compared with this
existing literature in order to reconceptualize home com-
fort beyond its typical thermal and physical characteriz-
ation. Accordingly, the paper now offers possible
directions for future investigation prompted by attend-
ing more to relaxation, companionship and control,
the three meanings of home comfort that rose in profile
in this paper.
There is clearly more to a basic standard of living
(Walker et al., 2016) and the quality of housing than
being sufficiently warm or cool, and prioritizing relax-
ation is a way to focus more on the health of occupants
(e.g. physical and mental wellbeing). Investigation of the
features of the home and practices of householders that
enhance relaxation is deserving of further research. Fur-
thermore, a reconceptualization of comfort into the
notion of relaxation has important implications for sus-
tainable consumption scholarship (Ellsworth-Krebs,
Reid, & Hunter, 2015). For instance, the framing of occu-
pant satisfaction as thermal comfort skews interventions
to reduce energy demand to largely mechanical and tech-
nical avenues (e.g. tighten the building fabric, invest in
efficiency and low-carbon heating systems), although
increasingly researchers are also questioning the stan-
dardization of the ‘comfort zone’(e.g. adapting to the
temperature or taking a siesta). However, defining
home comfort in terms of relaxation, resulting from
companionship and a sense of control in the home, has
the potential to shift attention onto changes in house
and household sizes, which are significant determinants
of energy demand per capita (DECC, 2013). Trends in
house and household sizes are related to changes in
family structures and globalization (Jamieson & Simp-
son, 2013; Williams, 2009), which influence shared
expectations of the space per person ‘needed’to facilitate
comfortably sharing the home with others. Thus, this
suggests avenues of research that could challenge the
processes by which shared expectations are generated,
rather than relying on improvements in efficiency to
reduce energy demand, such as investigating how priv-
acy and personal space is negotiated in smaller dwellings
and by different cultures.
The trend towards smaller household sizes is also
relevant to discussions of inequality and access to
affordable housing as increases in new housing stock
are undermined by increasing numbers of households,
which is not simply due to an increase in the popu-
lation. Bringing attention to the importance of compa-
nionship in occupant satisfaction thus allows
researchers and policy-makers potentially to design
interventions that target systemic changes in society
affecting access to housing. For example, exploring
how best to design for co-habiting (e.g. soundproofing
may improve home comfort as much or more than
increasing the size of a home; Soaita, 2015;Susanka,
2001) or to market homes and furniture that accommo-
date peaks in household without increasing the space
per person (e.g. multifunctional furniture to create tem-
porary bedrooms for guests). Moreover, recognition of
the desire for companionship and much more commu-
nal home life historically hints at the potential for cam-
paigns that support lodgers. Finally, broadening the
understanding of control in occupant satisfaction and
comfort research and policy reflects a common percep-
tion in housing studies that it is a psychological neces-
sity for homes to provide a sense of control and stability
(Dupuis & Thorns, 1998; Giddens, 1991). Encouraging
opportunities for personalization, often constrained in
rental and transitory housing (e.g. boarding school,
hospital, university), may also be an opportunity for
improving occupant’s wellbeing that goes beyond
ensuring they are sufficiently warm.
This paper is a plea to housing scholars to explore a
broader framework of comfort in future. There is a
huge range of possibilities for redesigning and regulating
housing in order to provide homes that promote both
physical and mental wellbeing. This starts by imagining
occupant satisfaction as more than thermal comfort and
this paper has identified 12 meanings of home comfort
and five homemaking themes that deserve further atten-
tion in building research and policy.
Notes
1. For example, the American Society for Heating,
Refrigeration and Air-Condition Engineers (ASHRAE)
and International Organisation for Standardisation
(ISO) are both organizations that set ‘standards for ther-
mal environmental conditions’which are increasingly
recognized and adopted internationally.
2. Special issues of Building Research & Information
include: ‘Comfort in a Lower Carbon Society’(2008),
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rbri20/36/4;‘Adaptive
Comfort in an Unpredictable World’(2013), http://
www.tandfonline.com/toc/rbri20/41/3;‘Counting the
Costs of Comfort’(2015), http://www.tandfonline.
com/toc/rbri20/43/3; and ‘Rethinking Thermal Com-
fort’(2017), http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rbri20/
45/7/.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the research participants who
generously gave their time to this project and the helpful feed-
back provided by the anonymous reviews and editor of this
journal.
BUILDING RESEARCH & INFORMATION 15
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was funded by a PhD studentship at the University
of St Andrews.
ORCID
Katherine Ellsworth-Krebs http://orcid.org/0000-0003-
3098-1498
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