3.3.1 General Information
A total of three interviewees were selected from each of the three regions.
Japanese and Vietnamese interviewees were architects, while the Taiwanese one was from the consulting engineering field. As the Japanese interviewee had a working experience in Vietnam, some differences in the way of thinking about building materials, including WPC between Japan and Vietnam, were obtained.
Since the Taiwanese interviewee had some Japanese customers he has known for a long time, some differences in attitudes towards building materials could also be obtained.
While interviews with Japanese and Vietnamese were conducted via video calls, the one with Taiwanese was face to face. The interviews were held to ask the validity of our interpretation against the results of the first questionnaire, and to obtain their opinions and suggestions on the improvements of WPC from the user’s point of view. Before the following questions, the overview of this research was briefly introduced, and some information about the questionnaire, including the respondents’ attributes, hypotheses, results, and interpretations, were explained.
- How about the awareness or popularity of WPC around their fields or regions?
- How do they think about the product life cycle of WPC in their regions?
- What do they think is the cause of the answer “mismatch with my projects”
in their fields or regions?
- What kind of causes for intentional avoidance of using WPC in their fields or regions?
- How are the pros and cons of WPC recognized in their fields or regions?
- How are their perceptions of the environmental friendliness of WPC?
- How are their impressions against the cost of WPC in their regions?
3.3.2 Results and Discussions
In this subsection, the results and interpretation obtained from the interviews in each region will be presented separately.
a. Japan
Generally, WPC seemed well-known in Japan, as the interviewee has stated.
Given the difference in climates, what is required in Vietnam is the robust structure of buildings rather than the texture of the interior or exterior building materials, while it is often prioritized in Japan. Hence, finishing building materials are less likely to be the main topic in Vietnam; instead, the spatial relationship through materials are more focused.
Since using WPC in the construction industry is overwhelmingly new compared to the long history of using wood as a building material in Japan, it seems too early to judge the use frequency of WPC even if the industry is said to be already matured, as he argued. It should also be noted that the
“green” building boom of recent years has only begun only two decades ago.
However, as he also argued, Japan has a rich heritage of wood use and the sturdy wood market, which can potentially weaken the competitiveness of WPC in Japan.
According to him, WPC is generally recognized as a recyclable “green”
material in Japan, and suppliers’ promotion might greatly influences this public perception. As almost 30% of the Japanese respondents have known WPC via catalog or newspaper in the questionnaire, these information
sources can inevitably form the perception. Regarding the negative impression of WPC, he has agreed with our interpretation that WPC is shunned by its users before the consideration of costs, due to its not good texture. WPC seems not readily accepted by Japanese as long as they value the profound feeling of textures, as he felt WPC looks “lighter and cheaper”
material, comparing with wood.
b. Taiwan
WPC is also quite popular in the landscape industry for uses such as street furniture or pedestrian deck in Taiwan, as the interviewee has said. For Taiwanese customers or investors, service life and maintainability were apparently of paramount importance due to the warm and humid climate in Taiwan (Figure 3.10). Because of this issue, Taiwanese WPC users tend to prefer WPC with a large portion of plastic. The materials made only of
Figure 3. 4 The climate comparison between Taipei and Tokyo (Source: ZenTech)
plastic can even often chosen by the users. As seen above, WPC is mainly recognized as a “long-lasting” and “easily maintainable” material in Taiwan.
As well as Japanese, the way Taiwanese WPC users understand WPC’s strengths and weaknesses might be heavily affected by suppliers. However, it seems that WPC’s environmental friendliness seemed still skeptical in Taiwan, although suppliers should also promote it. As the interviewee stated, natural wood is also regarded as an eco-friendly material when carbon fixation is considered. Regarding the negative impression against WPC, only Taiwanese answers contained “high cost” among the answers from the three regions in the questionnaire. As he argued, this could be because WPC is often a compromising alternative of natural wood and is inevitably used even if users would like to use wood instead because of the harsh weather in Taiwan. Therefore, they might suddenly realize that the initial cost of WPC is higher than that of natural wood, and this experience has formed the recognition.
c. Vietnam
Although WPC seemed well-known also among Vietnamese architects, they have only a little experience in using WPC in their projects, so it seemed rare for them to consider using it as the first option from a wide variety of
alternative building materials, as the interviewee stated. WPC is mainly used for public buildings when the maintainability is taken into account, while the use of WPC can seldom be seen in private projects such as resort hotels where aesthetics is highly regarded.
According to the interviewee, architects’ consideration and decision to build materials could be greatly influenced by their backgrounds. Though the
use of appropriate building materials according to project types is one of the fundamental knowledge in architectural education, the proper use of WPC has seldom been taught anywhere yet. As the interviewee insisted, this might be a primary cause why WPC has often been a “second option” in Vietnam.
Against the expectation, WPC’s product price is generally lower than natural wood in Vietnam, as he said. However, wooden building materials are infrequently used because of the harsh climate in Vietnam and its relatively poor installability. As he puts, the installation of wooden components normally takes at least a few months for building a standard deck, whereas WPC requires only a few weeks at the longest. Another problem of wood is that only skilled labor can properly install the wooden components, while WPC is relatively easier to install thanks to its
homogeneity of the material; hence even unskilled workers can install it without any difficulties. No comparison of installation speeds between WPC and wood decks was found, but good installation speeds of WPC due to its unique properties such as lack of splinters, easiness to cut, saw, nail, and screw have been reported (Klyosov 2007).