Problematic Design Features

Anthony lives his own in Leicester in an 1880s mid-terraced two-bedroom house. I visit him on a chilly but sunny day early in March 2013. I step into the front garden, where there is a little path made of grey stepping stones that leads to the main door.

The front of the building has the originally built red brick wall. Anthony opens the door, greets me in a friendly manner and we squeeze into the little reception room where he stores his city bike. The hall and the first floor stairs are long and narrow, covered with old dark-brown carpets that are ripped off in some of the corners. He asks me to keep my shoes on, because of the white ceramic tile flooring in the kitchen. A slightly fruity and sweet smell fills the air at the top of the stairs. Upon entering the kitchen, he shows me his rhubarb jam in the making. It is his signature dish based on a recipe that has been passed down through many generations of his family. He has also just finished preparing fish pies, which stand in ceramic dishes and are ready to go into the oven. The kitchen is white and very bright, and the large double-glazed window overlooks the outcrop of a long line of terraced houses.

Anthony completed a PhD degree at the local university and he now works for a utility company. He used to rent out one of the bedrooms, but now he enjoys the privacy because he often works from home. Last year the boiler was moved up from the lobby to the bathroom, and an extra double-panel radiator was added to the living room. All radiators had been fitted with TRVs. He had the house modernised just before he moved in. He changed the interior and had some of the walls knocked down. What is a spacious living room now used to be a hallway that was very dark and dingy. The hallway had access to a smaller room that used to be the living room.

Now it is a much bigger area that accommodates a fridge, two sofas and plenty of storage space. He unfortunately had to place the fridge right next to the door in the living room, because the kitchen did not have enough space. There is a radiator that is directly next to the fridge, but he cannot control it. The TRV is out of reach because a larger drawer and a set of boxes block the access. There is another

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radiator in the living room he cannot control. There is an extra single-panel radiator that was added to the living room. That radiator has a different TRV than the rest of the radiators and it is behind the sofa. There was not more space in the living room to put the radiator. He wanted a smaller radiator, but based on the standard calculations made by the plumber a large size needed to be fitted, albeit he cannot control it.

The old boiler was wall-mounted, he explains, but it needed repositioning. The replacement boiler took up less space. He is slightly shaking his head, sighs and tells me he finds it difficult to understand why no one mentioned the additional costs when he was quoted on replacing the boiler. Some of the costs he thinks are inevitable. For instance, people are “Bound to put in TRVs”. But it is often the case that boilers need to be replaced or repositioned. Anthony tells me that he comes from the northeast of England, from a big coalmining area where back boilers are very common. People have fireplaces where they put coal on the fire, but there is a boiler arrangement behind the fire that heats the hot water for the radiators. People in the past replaced these boilers directly with gas back boilers. This is what his brother has now. But it is inevitable for him to replace this boiler over the next few years. He is probably going to have to put the boiler somewhere else and all the pipework will have to change. A direct boiler replacement is often cheaper, but repositioning means improving the rest of the system, which significantly increases the cost.

184 Figure 101 Boiler

We walk up another floor from the living room, and we arrive in a little hallway that leads to the spare bedroom. The bedroom has red walls, a single bed and an under-window radiator that is hidden behind a large wooden desk. Anthony has a little sticker note attached to his bedroom door saying ‘remember to switch off’. He is forgetful sometimes and needs to be reminded to turn off the heating upon leaving the house.

Figure 102 “Have you turned everything off?” – sticker on the door

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The external walls should be insulated, but they are cold to touch. However, because they only take up a little wall frontage Anthony is not sure if it is worth the time and effort. The top floor accommodates Anthony’s bedroom, which also functions as the main study area. There are old, dark-brown wooden beams across the room and plenty of storage units under the triangle-shaped sloped ceilings. The north-facing roof has not been insulated either, whereas the front facing roof was re-roofed a few years ago. It makes a lot of difference, as it no longer gets that hot in the bedroom in the summer. But the insulation unfortunately benefitted him more in the summer than in the winter. When he bought the property there were no radiators in the room, and he used to live downstairs until the heating system was replaced. Now Anthony uses one part of the master bedroom as a study. There is a large double-panel radiator right behind the desk, but he cannot see the settings on the TRV, which is in between the desk and a smaller table where he keeps a printer. It is complicated trying to move close to adjust the settings. He moves the smaller table out of the way by pulling it a little bit further out. He then arches his back, leaning forward with his arms outstretched for support. His left leg supports most of his weight, and this becomes intense after just a few seconds. He leans back, breathing more heavily.

Because he cannot fully see the settings, he sometimes relies on his hearing to adjust them, but this can be “A bit awkward” sometimes:

“First of all I find I have to have my glasses on. And there is a click point. The recommended temperature has a click point on it. And to pass the click point I think is setting 4. I think you have to press that little button in. I’ve got it set to the click point because, to be honest, a lot of the time I use the… I carry around the wireless room stat to control the heating. My problem is when I want to turn off the radiator…

like the one in the front room downstairs, because I am using it to do my work when I am working at home. I need to turn it off from the frost setting or back to the frost setting. And it took me a while… it’s really difficult to see, because of the scales on the side, and you tend to be looking down on a thermostatic radiator valve, which means it’s hard to see the scale. And I have all this furniture in the way. And you need your glasses on. And I’m not very good with anything closer than about a metre or a metre and a half… I can’t read very well then. If I’m at work I have my glasses in

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the front pocket of my shirt. At home I have got pairs of reading glasses scattered around, but they are never within reach when I want to fiddle with the radiator.”

Figure 103 Anthony reaching for the TRV

Figure 104 Anthony adjusting the TRV

The irregularity of TRV control in Anthony’s home has developed from multiple sources. Irregularity intersects with the positioning of the radiators behind the desk, sofa and storage units, the lack of insulation in the pitched roof, the mixed set of TRVs in the living room, the limited visibility of the scales, moving of the furniture, the clicking sounds of the recommended click point or the difficulty in physical movement that goes into turning the TRVs up or down. But by being in the house with Anthony I could attend to the various sensory, physical and emotional elements he integrates into performing the movement of TRV control. And being present with the occupants indicates that being engaged in the development of irregularity, and irregularity itself can be a source of learning.

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Understanding the development of irregularity in TRV control in these homes brings the senses to the fore. Multisensory engagement in these lived environments not only provided a form of empathetic engagement, but it also placed my body and my sensory experiences right in the centre of intersections. By following the morning, after-work, evening and bedtime routines of the occupants, I was able to understand how home heating becomes part of daily domestic life. I could see how domestic activities (baking, dining, having guests over, drying laundry indoors, playing the piano) and material objects (electric heater, fireplace, desk, sofa) connect to home heating activities. I participated in some of the movements that helped me understand the physical work (e.g. moving furniture to access controls) that creates the gap between the intended and the actual use of TRVs. By witnessing and being part of the actual movement and performance of control practices I was able to learn more about the emotional elements that the movement expresses. I sensed the frustration that went into moving furniture, laughing and sarcasm that was part of nudging the boiler from the side and the tiring effect of leaning forward and overstretching to twist the head of the TRV control. By sensing the indoor air temperature I was able to make connections between uncertainty, insecurity, the lack of TRV control, the sensory experience of walking around barefooted and the sensory aesthetics of the home. By being present in these environments I was able to walk with the participants and connect to their route of sensory learning. I also understood the ‘history’ of some of the practices and the sensory background to why and from where irregularity develops. Additionally I got to know the particularities of various houses by sensing intense temperature differences across various spaces or by witnessing the dysfunctionality of radiators and boilers. I could connect the environmental elements and building fabric shortcomings (missing insulation, single-glazed windows, condensation on windows, missing radiators) to sensory experiences. Also, being immersed in the same physical environment made me sense where in the house the body loses and gains heat. Engaging in how convective or radiant heat feels in a given space gave me clues to understand why occupants move across the house in the way they do.

Being exposed to the same physical environment and multisensory inputs connected me to the constantly shifting place events. I was situated in the ongoing nature of problem solving at hand, and I experienced the skills that are acquired and used to

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deal with shortcomings. Multisensory emplaced learning therefore enabled me to absorb the environment in these homes by connecting me to the creation, maintenance and re-creation of the homes’ sensory aesthetics. What we have learnt from these lived environments is that irregularity in TRV control in its complexity cannot be understood without multisensory learning. Irregularity – and improvisatory practices that bring irregularity into existence – in this regard cannot be addressed by a single factor. Unanticipated uses of TRVs are joint outcomes. Therefore, improvisation and irregularity are always an intersection of physical, sensory, material and domestic environments. As I demonstrated earlier, the development of practices cannot be scripted, because the performed improvisatory practices emerge from complex, interwoven environments, and this might make the development of TRV control unforeseeable. Whereas this section discussed what can be learned from being emplaced at the intersection of irregularity, the next section shows that irregularity in itself is a communicative medium.