Kathleen Lodl

User Input in Housing Design: The Interdisciplinary Challenge

A consortium composed of home economists, architects, engineers, and horti culturists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln undertook a project to develop housing designs that would respond to the current and future needs and desires of people living in Nebraska. The consortium hoped to reduce the considerable gap between the thinking of designers and that of the people for whom they design (users) by linking designers with professionals in social sciences. This article contains a discussion of the user evaluation of the designs and the impli cations of these and other findings. From the housing designs created in response to user input, two were selected for user evaluation. A third design (that of a manufactured modular home cur rently on the market in Nebraska) was also included. The results show that the two designs created in response to user input were not, in general, acceptable to these users and that the modular home currently on the market was more ac ceptable. The findings raise some important questions and challenges for hous ing and design professionals.

The importance of selected housing features at various stages of the life cycle

The spatial environment of the home is an important factor in the consideration of satisfactory housing for families. With the increasing demand for housing, it has become common to simply provide the basic structure without addressing the various wants and needs of individuals and families. It is the purpose of the study reported here to evaluate the importance of specific housing features based on stage in the family lifecycle. Results show that those features with the highest importance involve low maintenance, aesthetics, and environmental quality. Implications for home designers, educators, and consumers are discussed.

Kids’Team: Statewide Agencies Model for Building Community Level Coalitions

As educators, we build coalitions to identify and address community problems. We aim to bring a sometimes diverse group of people together to study an issue and explore information on alternatives. While simple coalitions address a single issue, complex coalitions are multi-issue and are mobilized for a longer time. This paper describes building a complex coalition at the state level, in a project titled KIDS’ TEAM, as a model for developing and guiding formation of community coalitions to address specific local needs.

The Achievement of Cultural Housing Norms by Mother-Only Families

AbstractOne major problem faced by mother-only families is the attainment of adequate housing. While new legislation aimed at improving the housing situation for motheronly families has been developed, the success of this legislation has not been measured. To do this, it is necessary to compile baseline data to which future data can be compared. This study used data from the 1987 Panel Study of Income Dynamics to investigate factors associated with the attainment of housing that meets housing norms; and, to discover if mother-only families were as likely to achieve such norms as two-parent families when other identified predictors were held constant.