Measuring people’s perception towards Earth-sheltered buildings using photo-questionnaire survey

• The research gained people’s acceptance extent to deal with the Earth-sheltered buildings, at different cultures and communities, (hot-arid) developed Arab country, Egypt, and (cold-humid) advanced country, Japan.
• Concerning the architectural and urban design considerations, they helped to create recommended general guidelines for architects and urban planners for the application at the early design stages with different climates.
• From the main contributions of the cross sections suitability, we can conclude that using the two cross-sections above zero level were the most preferable and suitable from different aspects. On the other hand, the sloped sites and the underground patio type were un-preferable and not suitable from different aspects.
• It is recommended for architects and urban planners to use this type of buildings first at a touristic city with mild climate as a beginning, to give the public a chance to try it for short time as a resort or hotel. Afterwards, they can apply it at the residential sector.

The earth-sheltered buildings started to be known as an alternative passive energy design technique. This research is trying to measure people’s acceptance, to live in or deal with these buildings, whom had no previous experience, using the photo-questionnaire survey and interviews with a purposive expert sample (n = 164) at Egypt and Japan.Using the chi-square test, to generalize the results, the inferential statistics showed that 48.8% from the whole sample had a little knowledge, which means that it started to be recognizable among experts. In addition, 55.5% from the sample chose the application at a touristic city with mild climate. Moreover, 43.3% chose the residential usage, and 40.0% chose the touristic one. Which infers that the only bias of applying those buildings was psychological, according to its name related with “Earth”. However, when people had experienced the questionnaire through videos and pictures, they showed good reaction about those buildings. The significant results recommended for architects and urban planners to use this kind of buildings first at a touristic city with mild climate as a beginning, to give the public a chance to try it for short time as a resort or hotel. Afterwards, they can apply it at the residential sector.