Thomas Berker
Biographic Data
| ID | 4082282 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Thomas Berker |
| GIVEN NAMES | Thomas |
| FAMILY NAME | Berker |
| SIGNATURE | BERKER T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Norwegian University of Science and Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8117-0700 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 40 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Public engagement in zero-emission futures
This article explores how care as an analytical lens reframes understandings of public engagement in climate-mitigation research. The analysis draws on three living labs conducted in a technology-led research center dedicated to developing sustainable, zero-emission neighborhoods. The three living labs represented extreme variations in how the public received them and their proposals: rejection, passive disinterest, or enthusiastic acceptance. Fr…
Resistance against zero-emission neighbourhood infrastructuring
This article analyses non-trivial forms of resistance encountered in the implementation of zero-emission neighbourhoods in Norway, based on eight years of living lab experiments and interviews with key stakeholders. Drawing on a socio-material approach to infrastructuring, it identifies three distinct categories of resistance: tensions between professional groups—particularly between energy and construction sectors; resistance ‘from above’ throug…
The role of households in sustainability transitions
A sustainable campus for an uncertain future. Two cases of infrastructural transformation at Norway’s largest university
Purpose This study aims to convey lessons learned from two sustainability initiatives at Norway’s largest university. This contributes to knowledge-based discussions of how future, sustainable higher education institutions (HEIs) infrastructures should be envisioned and planned if the fundamental uncertainty of the future development of learning, researching and teaching is acknowledged. Design/methodology/approach This study was submitted on 24 …
I love it
Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through renovation of the existing building stock is high on national and international agendas, but a broader understanding that includes building inventory and the circular economy is not often included. By 2028, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) plans to consolidate university campuses and rehabilitate up to 45 000 m2 of buildings. There are some signs of circular economy at the u…
Seduction, caution, fight
In a little more than 10 years, Norway went from being a laggard in low energy construction to mandatory Passive House energy consumption levels for all new buildings. This is a remarkable story of expert-led sustainable change, in which considerable resistance had to be overcome. Based on a distant and a close reading of Norwegian print media coverage of low energy buildings between 2005 and 2012, we analyse one aspect of this success story: rep…
Infrastructures by the users for users
Users adapt infrastructures materially to fit their needs, they engage in maintenance and repair, and they learn about the inner workings of infrastructures. Different degrees of user engagement with infrastructures are empirically analysed using the case of user-developed alternative mobile operating systems. Some observations of user agency made already in early studies of the appropriation of media and technology were found to be still relevan…
An agenda for future Social Sciences and Humanities research on energy efficiency
Decades of techno-economic energy policymaking and research have meant evidence from the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH)—including critical reflections on what changing a society’s relation to energy (efficiency) even means—have been underutilised. In particular, (i) the SSH have too often been sidelined and/or narrowly pigeonholed by policymakers, funders, and other decision-makers when driving research agendas, and (ii) the setting of SSH-…
Identifying and addressing reverse salients in infrastructural change. The case of a small zero emission campus in Southern Norway
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the relevance and use of the concept “reverse salient” in ambitious infrastructural change. Thomas Hughes, in his seminal study of socio-technical system building, observed that the elimination of “reverse salients”, i.e. subsystems that because of their limited performance hold back further development, was a central driver for creativity and innovation. It is argued that in sustainable infrast…
Ambitions at work
Domestication, acceptance and zero emission ambitions
A traveler’s guide to smart grids and the social sciences
Domesticating Spaces
The main aim of this article is to rephrase good and bad performance of built environments as good or bad interplay of spaces, building technologies, and users. To support this perspective, two conceptual tools broadly used within the social study of technology are introduced. These concepts, the semiotic pair “script/antiprogram” and the study of “domestication of media and technology in everyday life,” were originally developed in the search fo…
Michel Callon, Pierre Lascoumes and Yannick Barthe, Acting in an Uncertain World
Sustainable urbanisation? Norwegian cabin culture in transition
In this article, we explore a cultural change which has made the desire to live close to nature from a core tenet of Norwegian culture to an unsustainable threat to nature. During the last two decades, Norwegian cabin tourism has moved from ‘hard’ forms (few, prolonged stays, strong identification with the site) of ecotourism to ‘softer’ ones (shorter, more frequent stays, commercialisation of the site). These changes, we argue, have led to a sit…
Paradoxes of design
In this article we explore the widely held assumption that aestheticized consumption is bound to escalate. In our study of 20 years of representations of bathrooms in Norway's most popular interior design magazine Bonytt , we found support for the hypothesis that since the early 1990s new uses of bathrooms as sites for the construction and expression of identity and social aspirations have become more salient. We also have reason to believe that …
Informatisierung der Arbeit - Gesellschaft im Umbruch
A traveler’s guide to smart grids and the social sciences
Domestication, acceptance and zero emission ambitions
Domesticating Spaces
The main aim of this article is to rephrase good and bad performance of built environments as good or bad interplay of spaces, building technologies, and users. To support this perspective, two conceptual tools broadly used within the social study of technology are introduced. These concepts, the semiotic pair “script/antiprogram” and the study of “domestication of media and technology in everyday life,” were originally developed in the search fo…
Ambitions at work
The role of households in sustainability transitions
Infrastructures by the users for users
Users adapt infrastructures materially to fit their needs, they engage in maintenance and repair, and they learn about the inner workings of infrastructures. Different degrees of user engagement with infrastructures are empirically analysed using the case of user-developed alternative mobile operating systems. Some observations of user agency made already in early studies of the appropriation of media and technology were found to be still relevan…
Michel Callon, Pierre Lascoumes and Yannick Barthe, Acting in an Uncertain World
Sustainable urbanisation? Norwegian cabin culture in transition
In this article, we explore a cultural change which has made the desire to live close to nature from a core tenet of Norwegian culture to an unsustainable threat to nature. During the last two decades, Norwegian cabin tourism has moved from ‘hard’ forms (few, prolonged stays, strong identification with the site) of ecotourism to ‘softer’ ones (shorter, more frequent stays, commercialisation of the site). These changes, we argue, have led to a sit…
Paradoxes of design
In this article we explore the widely held assumption that aestheticized consumption is bound to escalate. In our study of 20 years of representations of bathrooms in Norway's most popular interior design magazine Bonytt , we found support for the hypothesis that since the early 1990s new uses of bathrooms as sites for the construction and expression of identity and social aspirations have become more salient. We also have reason to believe that …
Informatisierung der Arbeit - Gesellschaft im Umbruch
Sustainable urbanisation? Norwegian cabin culture in transition
In this article, we explore a cultural change which has made the desire to live close to nature from a core tenet of Norwegian culture to an unsustainable threat to nature. During the last two decades, Norwegian cabin tourism has moved from ‘hard’ forms (few, prolonged stays, strong identification with the site) of ecotourism to ‘softer’ ones (shorter, more frequent stays, commercialisation of the site). These changes, we argue, have led to a sit…
Paradoxes of design
In this article we explore the widely held assumption that aestheticized consumption is bound to escalate. In our study of 20 years of representations of bathrooms in Norway's most popular interior design magazine Bonytt , we found support for the hypothesis that since the early 1990s new uses of bathrooms as sites for the construction and expression of identity and social aspirations have become more salient. We also have reason to believe that …
Domesticating Spaces
The main aim of this article is to rephrase good and bad performance of built environments as good or bad interplay of spaces, building technologies, and users. To support this perspective, two conceptual tools broadly used within the social study of technology are introduced. These concepts, the semiotic pair “script/antiprogram” and the study of “domestication of media and technology in everyday life,” were originally developed in the search fo…
Michel Callon, Pierre Lascoumes and Yannick Barthe, Acting in an Uncertain World
A traveler’s guide to smart grids and the social sciences
Ambitions at work
Domestication, acceptance and zero emission ambitions
Identifying and addressing reverse salients in infrastructural change. The case of a small zero emission campus in Southern Norway
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the relevance and use of the concept “reverse salient” in ambitious infrastructural change. Thomas Hughes, in his seminal study of socio-technical system building, observed that the elimination of “reverse salients”, i.e. subsystems that because of their limited performance hold back further development, was a central driver for creativity and innovation. It is argued that in sustainable infrast…
An agenda for future Social Sciences and Humanities research on energy efficiency
Decades of techno-economic energy policymaking and research have meant evidence from the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH)—including critical reflections on what changing a society’s relation to energy (efficiency) even means—have been underutilised. In particular, (i) the SSH have too often been sidelined and/or narrowly pigeonholed by policymakers, funders, and other decision-makers when driving research agendas, and (ii) the setting of SSH-…
Seduction, caution, fight
In a little more than 10 years, Norway went from being a laggard in low energy construction to mandatory Passive House energy consumption levels for all new buildings. This is a remarkable story of expert-led sustainable change, in which considerable resistance had to be overcome. Based on a distant and a close reading of Norwegian print media coverage of low energy buildings between 2005 and 2012, we analyse one aspect of this success story: rep…
Infrastructures by the users for users
Users adapt infrastructures materially to fit their needs, they engage in maintenance and repair, and they learn about the inner workings of infrastructures. Different degrees of user engagement with infrastructures are empirically analysed using the case of user-developed alternative mobile operating systems. Some observations of user agency made already in early studies of the appropriation of media and technology were found to be still relevan…
A sustainable campus for an uncertain future. Two cases of infrastructural transformation at Norway’s largest university
Purpose This study aims to convey lessons learned from two sustainability initiatives at Norway’s largest university. This contributes to knowledge-based discussions of how future, sustainable higher education institutions (HEIs) infrastructures should be envisioned and planned if the fundamental uncertainty of the future development of learning, researching and teaching is acknowledged. Design/methodology/approach This study was submitted on 24 …
I love it
Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through renovation of the existing building stock is high on national and international agendas, but a broader understanding that includes building inventory and the circular economy is not often included. By 2028, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) plans to consolidate university campuses and rehabilitate up to 45 000 m2 of buildings. There are some signs of circular economy at the u…
Resistance against zero-emission neighbourhood infrastructuring
This article analyses non-trivial forms of resistance encountered in the implementation of zero-emission neighbourhoods in Norway, based on eight years of living lab experiments and interviews with key stakeholders. Drawing on a socio-material approach to infrastructuring, it identifies three distinct categories of resistance: tensions between professional groups—particularly between energy and construction sectors; resistance ‘from above’ throug…
The role of households in sustainability transitions
Public engagement in zero-emission futures
This article explores how care as an analytical lens reframes understandings of public engagement in climate-mitigation research. The analysis draws on three living labs conducted in a technology-led research center dedicated to developing sustainable, zero-emission neighborhoods. The three living labs represented extreme variations in how the public received them and their proposals: rejection, passive disinterest, or enthusiastic acceptance. Fr…
Sociology (12 works) · Political science (8 works) · Engineering (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Sustainability (6 works) · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance (5 works) · Architectural engineering (4 works) · Economics (4 works) · Norwegian (4 works) · Public relations (4 works)