Abstract
This study aims to analyse the attitudes of building professionals towards the use of wood in building design and construction in Taiwan, and to investigate how professionals’ backgrounds affect their attitudes upon the wood usage using statistical analysis. 123 valid questionnaires were collected from various building professionals, including architecture students, architects, interior designers and building construction engineers. It has been shown that wood is regarded as the most environmentally-friendly material in building design and construction. ‘Beauty’ and ‘proprietor’ are the most two essential factors identified by professionals that may influence their decisions to use wood, whereas the deconstruction phase and post-use of demolished wood are considered less important. With respect to the wood utilisation in construction, building professionals prefer using wood in the substructure to main structure at present. On the other hand, the differences between professionals’ experience in designing wood houses or wood elements, and their attitudes towards the importance of reasons in using wood are generally insignificant, except for the easy assembly (p = 0.03) and easy disassembly (p = 0.02) of wood construction. Professionals in favour of wood substitution are more likely to choose wood in column, beam, window, outdoor wall and door. Moreover, there are significant differences between professionals’ occupations and their opinions upon the recyclability issues of materials (p = 0.02). In the future, more sufficient communications are required through the design process among various professional groups.
Zusammenfassung
In dieser Studie wird die Einstellung von Baufachleuten in Taiwan zur Verwendung von Holz im Bauwesen untersucht. Darüber hinaus wird statistisch untersucht, in wie weit die berufliche Ausrichtung dieser Fachleute ihre Präferenz für Holz beeinflusst. 123 gültige Fragebogen wurden von Architekturstudenten, Architekten, Innenarchitekten und Bauingenieuren abgegeben. Es zeigte sich, dass Holz als umweltfreundlichstes Baumaterial angesehen wird. Die Kriterien „Schönheit“ und „Bauherr“ wurden von den Fachleuten als die beiden wichtigsten Faktoren bei der Entscheidung für die Verwendung von Holz angegeben, wohingegen die Abrisskosten und die Wiederverwendung von gebrauchtem Holz als weniger wichtig erachtet wurden. Bezüglich der Verwendung von Holz im Bau ziehen die Baufachleute derzeit die Verwendung von Holz für den Innenausbau der Verwendung für konstruktive Zwecke vor. Unabhängig davon, ob die Befragten Erfahrungen im Holzbau oder im Innenausbau hatten, unterschied sich deren Bewertung der Argumente für eine Holzverwendung praktisch nicht, mit Ausnahme der einfachen Montage (p = 0,03) und Demontage (p = 0,02) von Holzkonstruktionen. Soweit die Fachleute die Verwendung von Holz bevorzugen, wird Holz eher für Stützen, Balken, Fenster, Außenwände und Türen ausgewählt. Weiterhin bestehen bei den Fachleuten je nach ihrer beruflichen Ausrichtung unterschiedliche Meinungen, was die Wiederverwendbarkeit von Baustoffen anbelangt (p = 0,02). Zukünftig bedarf es einer besseren Kommunikation zwischen den am Bau beteiligten Fachgruppen.
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Li, SH., Xie, H. Building professionals’ attitudes towards the use of wood in building design and construction in Taiwan. Eur. J. Wood Prod. 71, 497–505 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00107-013-0688-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00107-013-0688-1