Using the Means-End Approach to Understand Perceived Value by Users of Social Housing Projects

The production of social housing projects in Brazil has been criticized for systematically failing to meet the requirements of final users. This criticism comes mainly from post-occupancy evaluation studies carried out by academics. However, most of those studies have focused on the evaluation of housing product attributes, without considering the overall benefits resulting from the project. Due to the complexity of housing products, it is necessary to devise evaluation methods that enable a systematic analysis of the consequences for users. The purpose of this study is to propose a conceptual model that adapts value hierarchy concepts into the social housing context, based on the means-end chain theory. The secondary aim of this study is to propose guidelines for modelling value generation for final users of social housing projects, with the aim of supporting decision making during the product development process. This study was divided into four stages: (a) understanding existing social housing programmes in Brazil; (b) development of the conceptual model for value generation in the social housing context, based on value dimensions proposed in the literature; (c) development of a method for representing value generation in social housing projects; (e) assessment of the proposed solution through the evaluation of a housing project.