Self-building: the production and consumption of new homes from the perspective of households

拟议的研究从自建房家庭的角度考察了自建房作为满足当今英国住房需求的一种方式。这是一种未被充分研究的住房供应形式，在当前的住房危机中——住房供应无法满足需求，住房建设处于自20世纪20年代以来和平时期的最低水平（社区和地方政府部门，2011年1月1日）——正被推广为一种开发可获得和负担得起的住房的方式。据报道，建造自己的房屋的成本为15万英镑（不包括土地购买）（NaSBA 2011；社区和地方政府部门2001），推动者强调，自建房屋比主流住房更经济，在适当的条件下，大多数人都可以获得主流住房。然而，对于谁是今天的自我建设者，我们的理解是有限的；大设计（Grand Designs）等流行的代表往往专注于高端自建项目，其结果是忽视了这一人群的多样性（正如国家自建协会2011年所声称的那样）。自建是一个广泛的类别，包括那些以各种方式投入时间和精力建造自己房屋的家庭。这包括选择聘请项目经理来监督和管理施工过程的人；自己承担项目管理但雇佣他人从事建筑体力劳动的家庭，一直到自己承担体力劳动的家庭。该类别还涵盖了不同的建筑模式——从预制建筑的建造到建筑设计。在今天的英国，自建通常是由单个家庭承担，以满足他们的住房需求，但也有社区或集体自建的例子。在此背景下，本研究对当今英国的自我建设进行了系统的调查，质疑谁会成为自我建设者，如何成为自我建设者？它将反映出自建人群在住房投资（财务和其他方面）、阶级背景、地理位置以及自建过程中的进展等方面的多样性。它调查了是什么使家庭倾向于自建，以及在这一过程中形成他们经历的特殊挑战和机遇。此外，通过关注阶级、家庭和自建过程之间的关系，该项目将探索家庭特征和动态如何与家庭的物质形式相交。此外，本研究还探讨了自我建构的过程是否具有内在的阶级相关性。这些实证数据将为英国未来的自我建设提供重要的见解。研究将包括与主要利益相关者的半结构化访谈、文献分析、对200个自建房家庭的互联网调查，以及对20个自建房家庭的深入民族志案例研究（包括创新的参与式研究方法）。这一系列的方法将产生定量和定性的数据，允许对自建人群进行一些统计分析，并提供对自建作为一种现象的更多上下文理解。将在整个研究项目和随后的传播活动中咨询一个由用户组成的咨询小组。这是为了确保收集到的数据在学术界之外也有使用价值，并确保研究具有影响力。研究成果将包括向从业人员传播（通过为期一天的研讨会和15页的研究报告），向研究参与者和公众传播（通过研究报告，在自建展览上传播活动，在通俗报刊上发表文章），以及学术传播（通过会议演讲，期刊文章和研究专著）。

The proposed research examines self-building as a way of meeting housing need in Britain today from the perspective of self-building households. This is an understudied form of housing provision, that in the current housing crisis - where housing supply cannot meet demand and where housebuilding is at its lowest peacetime rate since the 1920s (Department for Communities and Local Government 2011a) - is being promoted as a way to develop accessible and affordable housing. With the cost of building your own home reported to be £150,000 (excluding land purchase) (NaSBA 2011; Department for Communities and Local Governments 2001b), promoters stress that self-building is more affordable than mainstream housing which, under the right conditions, can be accessible to wide proportions of the population. There is however, limited understanding of who today's self-builders are; popular representations such as Grand Designs often focus on high-end self-building projects, with the result that the diversity in this population (as claimed by the National Self-Build Association 2011), is overlooked. Self-build is a broad category that involves households who invest time and energy in the building of their own homes in various ways. This includes people who choose to employ a project manager to oversee and manage the construction process; households who undertake the project management themselves but employ others to do the physical work of construction, through to those undertaking the manual labour required themselves. The category also captures different modes of building - from the construction of pre-fabricated buildings to architecturally-design. In Britain today, self-build is usually undertaken by individual households as a way of meeting their housing needs, but there are also examples of community or collective self-build. Against this background, the proposed research conducts a systematic investigation of self-building in Britain today, questioning who becomes a self-builder and how? It will reflect the diversity of the self-build population in terms of their investment (financial and otherwise) in their homes, their class background, their geographical location and their progress in the process of self-building. It investigates what predisposes households to self-build and what are the particular challenges and opportunities that shape their experiences of this process. In addition, via a focus on the relationship between class, households and the process of self-building, the project will explore how household characteristics and dynamics intersect with the material form of the home. Furthermore, the research examines whether the process of self-building is inherently class-related. This empirical data will provide critical insights into the future of self-building in Britain. The research will include semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, documentary analysis, an Internet survey with 200 self-building households, and in-depth ethnographic case studies (including innovative participatory research methods) with 20 self-building households. This range of methods will produce both quantitative and qualitative data, allowing for some statistical analysis of the self-build population as well as providing more contextual understandings of self-build as a phenomenon. An advisory group made up of users will be consulted throughout the research project and subsequent dissemination activities. This is to ensure that the data collected is of use beyond the academy, and to ensure that the research has impact. Research outputs will include dissemination to practitioners (through a one-day workshop and a 15-page research report), dissemination to research participants and the general public (through a research report, dissemination activities at self-build exhibitions, articles in popular press), and academic dissemination (through conference presentations, journal articles and a research monograph).