Current ambitious goals regarding the reduction of energy consumption and CO2 emissions cannot only be met by designing extremely energy-efficient buildings (Schubert et al., 2010). The integration of such buildings into well-functioning social and smart communities, which then create a so called Smart City, seems to be necessary regarding various aspects. It is generally believed that a building equipped with several high-technology features will not only work efficiently in the community context, but also that it will provide high occupant satisfaction (Kamilaris, 2013). However, in order to create this synergy of building and its social-urban environment it is not very common to ask people outside of the development process about their preferences, wishes and concerns. The present paper reports results from a survey conducted among different target groups as a part of Technical University of Denmark’s (DTU) contribution to the Solar Decathlon Europe 2014 competition (Team DTU, 2013). The main objective of the survey was to map a level of usage of building/home automation in current dwellings, investigate people’s satisfaction with automated features and explore their wishes/preferences in that field. Special emphasis was always put on the connection of the respondent to his social environment in his living area.     «

Current ambitious goals regarding the reduction of energy consumption and CO2 emissions cannot only be met by designing extremely energy-efficient buildings (Schubert et al., 2010). The integration of such buildings into well-functioning social and smart communities, which then create a so called Smart City, seems to be necessary regarding various aspects. It is generally believed that a building equipped with several high-technology features will not only work efficiently in the community conte...     »