Mass personalisation

Abstract

Ensuring quality in affordable housing remains a major challenge for both developed and developing countries. Residential quality can be explained as the capacity of a dwelling to meet the specific needs and preferences of its occupants, a condition that is often associated with the high costs of custom buildings. This chapter introduces the notion of mass personalisation and explores its potential as means to increase residential quality without breaching the limits of affordable production. Mass personalisation can be defined as a particular approach to mass customisation in which the attributes of a product or service are custom-tailored towards the implicit needs and preferences of individual users. In housing, this implies buildings capable to meet changing household requirements throughout their life cycles. This chapter reviews different techniques that may enable incorporation of such principles to housing design and development, and explores their potential with two abstract prototype implementations.