There is an increasing body of academics and practitioners studying in a variety of fields that relate to and shed light on the benefits, impacts, and best practices of traditional building, architecture, and urbanism. Here below we have compiled these studies for your use. Text describing these studies is quoted from the studies themselves. Please see the relevant links to learn more about each study and advise of us research you believe should be included in this list.

Building Craft and Preservation Trades

Hartley, S. (2023). Maintaining a Complex Building Culture: The Precarious State of Heritage Crafts in the United States. Journal of Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism, (4), 204–212.

  • This article examines the current shortage of heritage craft workers in the United States and how the nation has reached the current situation of crisis. It considers the complexity of America’s building tradition and the role that immigration has played in the shaping of its built heritage. Through those immigrant traditions, it studies the desire for assimilation into American life through successive generations transitioning away from building craft. It concludes by exploring the current issues facing the heritage craft industries, the initiatives being undertaken to address these concerns, and the need to expand such practices.

PlaceEconomics for The Campaign for Historic Trades. (2022). Status of Historic Trades in America

  • The Campaign for Historic Trades releases a first-of-its-kind labor study on the status of historic trades in America. Analysis shows the need for a larger and better-trained historic trades workforce; 100,000 workers needed within the next decade.

Whitehill, W. et al. (1968). The Whitehill Report on Professional and Public Education for Historic Preservation to the Trustees of the National Trust for Historic Preservation by the Committee on Professional and Public Education for Historic Preservation

  • In the past twenty years the speed of change in the appearance of the United States, both in city and countryside, in buildings and in landscape, has been vastly accelerated. Continued prosperity combined with rapid growth of population bring about more changes in a year than were previously normal in a decade.
  • Forty years ago most architects had been trained in the grammar of historic styles and in draughtsmanship, while many older carpenters and masons were still familiar with the traditional techniques of their crafts. Through changes in the curricula of architectural schools beginning in the 1930’s, only an occasional architect of the present day has the interest in and knowledge of the past that were once a commonplace of the profession. With rapidly changing techniques in the building trades, inspired by new materials and pre-fabrication, the ability to repair (or where necessary reproduce) details in old buildings has become extremely uncommon. 
  • Our concern with professional education in historic preservation is rigidly limited to architecture and the building crafts, for it is only by continued practical use of some kind that most buildings can or should be preserved. 

Environmental Psychology

theHapi – The Human Architecture and Planning Institute. Various research projects into evidence-based design, using biometric and other tools to reveal hidden aspects of the human experience that direct our behavior in the built environment.

Public Preference and Trends

ADAM Architecture. YouGov survey results show that people prefer traditional rather than contemporary buildings

  • In a YouGov survey to determine whether the public prefers traditional or contemporary buildings, 77% of respondents who selected a design, from a choice of 4, chose traditional architecture over contemporary styles. Only 23% chose contemporary buildings. This is thought to be the first time that a survey has been conducted to find out the people’s preference in relation to non-residential buildings.
  • For a press release of the survey, see here: https://adamarchitecture.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/YouGov-survey_Oct09_resultsfollowup.pdf

ADAM Architecture. Tomorrow’s Home: Emerging social trends and their impact on the built environment

  • Looks into emerging social trends in the 18 to 34 age group in England and Wales and how these will impact on the built environment...Reveals how technology, education, wealth and personal relationships are changing the life-styles of the up-and-coming generation.
  • Identifies: a new ‘individual collectivism’, where city living, sharing and renting are on the increase; ‘downloadable lifestyles’, where the new generation will demand increased facilities in cities and smaller towns, ‘mega/micro commuting’, where new working conditions are already changing travel patterns; and suggests that we are seeing ‘the end of the dormitory suburb’. All this will lead to ‘new housing ladders’ which will transform our towns, cities and countryside.
  • To download and executive summary, see here: https://adamarchitecture.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Tomorrows-Home-SUMMARY-report-ADAM-Urbanism-Grainger-plc.pdf

Mouratidis, K., & Hassan, R. (2020). Contemporary versus traditional styles in architecture and public space: A virtual reality study with 360-degree videos. Cities, 97, 102499.

Ro, Brandon R., and Hunter Huffman. (2024). “Architectural Design, Visual Attention, and Human Cognition: Exploring Responses to Federal Building Styles.” Planning Practice & Research, 1–40. doi:10.1080/02697459.2024.2342755.

  • This article examines the ongoing architectural debate surrounding styles for American government buildings. It tests the results of the 2020 National Civic Art Society survey that found 72% of Americans prefer traditional federal buildings over modern designs. To gain a neuro-biological perspective on these results, eye-tracking emulation software is used to evaluate the relationship between architectural design, visual attention, and human preferences. The hypothesis that traditional buildings would capture and retain pre-attentive visual processing more than modern styles was confirmed in several experiments. The research offers valuable insights for architects, urban planners, and policymakers considering design decisions about federal buildings.

Physiological and Health Benefits

Health and Places Initiative (HAPI) Research Brief. Housing, Health, and Place

  • Where people live, the quality of their housing, the places where their children play, and other factors may expose them to pollutants and significant health risks, such as lung disease, lead poisoning, cancer, reproductive impacts, birth defects, headaches, and more. These risks may be associated with nearby land uses, previous activities on a site, building materials, housing quality, and crowding. While water and air are the primary conveyances for pollutants, exposure can also occur through contaminated soil and direct exposure to toxins and chemicals in the home or workplace environments.
  • For results, see here: https://research.gsd.harvard.edu/hapi/files/2015/11/HAPI_ResearchBrief-Housing-v1.2-113015.pdf

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2017 Jul; 14(7): 773. Harumi Ikei, Chorong Song, and Yoshifumi Miyazaki. Physiological Effects of Touching Coated Wood.

“This study examined the physiological effects of touching wood with various coating with the palm of the hand on brain activity and autonomic nervous activity…The results indicated that tactile stimulation with uncoated wood calmed prefrontal cortex activity (vs. urethane finish and mirror finish), increased parasympathetic nervous activity (vs. vitreous finish, urethane finish, and mirror finish), and decreased heart rate (vs. mirror finish), demonstrating a physiological relaxation effect. Further, tactile stimulation with oil- and vitreous-finished wood calmed left prefrontal cortex activity and decreased heart rate relative to mirror-finished wood.”

Quality of Life

Research & Policy Lab, National Trust for Historic Preservation. Older, Smaller, Better.

“This groundbreaking study demonstrates the unique and valuable role that older, smaller buildings play in the development of sustainable cities. Building on statistical analysis of the built fabric of three major American cities, the research demonstrates that established neighborhoods with a mix of older, smaller buildings perform better than districts with larger, newer structures when tested against a range of economic, social, and environmental outcome measures.”

Mouratidis, K. (2018). Built environment and social well-being: How does urban form affect social life and personal relationships? Cities, 74, 7-20. 

  • The built environment can influence social well-being.
  • Compact urban forms may increase satisfaction with personal relationships.
  • Shorter distances facilitate larger social networks and more frequent socializing.
  • Higher densities and ‘third places’ increase opportunities to meet new people.
  • Findings contribute to debates on quality of life and urban sustainability.

Sustainability, Energy Performance, or Durability

ADAM Architecture. A study of the energy performance of two buildings with lightweight and heavyweight facades – Energy & Environmental Assessment

  • ADAM Architecture formed a consortium of house-builders, a planning consultant and Atelier 10, the leading environmental engineers, to provide a properly tested comparison between a largely glass-walled lightweight building and a traditional dense-walled building with punched window openings and traditional materials.
  • The research demonstrates the clear relative benefits of the traditional building type as against the glass-wall type, and confirms what all environmental engineers know but most architects would rather ignore: that traditional buildings are the most sustainable type.
  • For executive summary, see here: https://adamarchitecture.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ADAM_Atelier10-EnvmntlAssmnt-ExecSummary_02_A4.pdf

GreenScale Research, University of Notre Dame, School of Architecture. GreenScale Research
“Today, prevailing discourse on “green” building practices centers on a presumed corollary between sustainability and advanced building technologies. As a result, research and discussions about achieving sustainability and greener building methods has generally focused on the capabilities of modern technology to generate “sustainable” design solutions. And yet, currently there exists no universally accepted method or tool capable of holistically measuring the broader impact of these advanced technologies on the built and natural environments. What are the true costs – the consequences, even – of these novel and often experimental building materials and methods of assembly? And how might they be measured in order to expand our ability to make informed design and material decisions, leading ultimately to the creation of truly sustainable buildings?”

Preservation Green Lab, National Trust for Historic Preservation. Realizing the Energy Efficiency Potential of Small Buildings 
“A new study…finds that an array of energy savings in small commercial buildings could profitably yield more than $30 billion in annual cost savings and improved financial performance…The report defines elements and recommends key actions needed to realize energy savings across seven million business establishments operating in 4.4 million small buildings nationally.”

Preservation Green Lab, National Trust for Historic Preservation. Saving Windows, Saving Money: Evaluating the Energy Performance of Window Retrofit and Replacement 
“This analysis…builds on previous research by examining multiple window improvement options, comparing them to replacement windows across multiple climate regions. This report…concludes that a number of existing window retrofit strategies come very close to the energy performance of high-performance replacement windows at a fraction of the cost. Saving Windows, Saving Money’s key findings offer homeowners, contractors, architects and others with compelling evidence of the merits of retrofitting windows as opposed to outright replacement.”

Preservation Green Lab, National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse 
“This groundbreaking study…concludes that, when comparing buildings of equivalent size and function, building reuse almost always offers environmental savings over demolition and new construction. The report’s key findings offer policy-makers, building owners, developers, architects and engineers compelling evidence of the merits of reusing existing buildings as opposed to tearing them down and building new.”