About

Jonathan Bean is an Associate Professor of Architecture, Sustainable Built Environments, and Marketing at the University of Arizona's College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (CAPLA). He holds a PhD and MS from the University of California at Berkeley and a BA from the same institution. His expertise encompasses building science, market transformation in the building industry, and high-performance building processes. Bean's research includes understanding the potential of high-performance building to reduce carbon emissions, as exemplified by his TEDx talk Demand Less. He has served as the faculty lead for a finalist team in the 2018 Race to Zero Student Design Challenge and led three finalist teams in the 2019 Solar Decathlon Design Competition, contributing to the development of innovative energy systems. Bean is a PHIUS Certified Passive House Consultant and serves on the board of the Passive House Alliance US. His work also spans consumer research, human-computer interaction, architecture, and design, with a focus on taste and consumption. He has received grants from various research councils and is a columnist for ACM Interactions magazine. His research on taste regimes, developed in collaboration with Zeynep Arsel, has significantly contributed to Consumer Culture Theory, and he has co-edited a book on taste, consumption, and markets.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Business
• Social Science
• Marketing
• Aesthetics
• Art
• Law
• Chemistry
• Food science
• Management
• Social psychology
• Mathematics
• Statistics
• Psychology
• Economics

Selected publications

• On Being Demoted to Second Class

  interactions · 2026-02-26

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• On Being Stuck in the Drive-Through

  interactions · 2025-06-20

  article1st authorCorresponding

  No abstract available.

  PublisherDOI

• Navigating Nostalgia: Technology, Intention, and the Road Ahead

  interactions · 2025-02-25

  article1st authorCorresponding

  No abstract available.

  PublisherDOI

• Feeding AI, Eating Us

  interactions · 2025-10-21

  article1st authorCorresponding

  No abstract available.

  PublisherDOI

• Boxes and Doxa

  2025-01-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  The Solar Decathlon Design Challenge competition can be an excellent opportunity to build student agency. The chapter describes how doxa and field, two concepts developed by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, inform the pedagogy of a semester-long course. The competition requires students to present their ideas to jurors, most of whom come from outside the professional field of architecture. Using an approach informed by Mark Carnes's book Minds On Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College, I explain an exercise that helps students work with their peers to develop their designs and prepare for the juried competition. I also relate how an accounting exercise intended to teach students about the challenge of taking inventory in a store can be adapted to address the problem of carbon accounting. This adaptation serves as a scaffold for discussing global warming potential and the role of buildings and architects. A core idea is how to teach architecture students to see from the perspective of other fields and other professions, which is especially challenging because tacit rules (doxa) do not always align with those of the professions adjacent to architecture, such as construction and engineering. This discrepancy, expressed in the concern that teaching students about efficiency will result in the design of ugly boxes, may limit the uptake of the competition in architectural programs and restrict interdisciplinary collaboration, which is crucial for impact.

  PublisherDOI

• Cutting Through the Code: Will AI Bring Efficiency or Reinforce Complexity?

  interactions · 2024-10-29 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  No abstract available.

  PublisherDOI

• Energy Civics

  interactions · 2024-02-28

  article1st authorCorresponding

  column Share on Energy Civics Author: Jonathan Bean University of Arizona University of ArizonaView Profile Authors Info & Claims InteractionsVolume 31Issue 2March - April 2024pp 18–20https://doi.org/10.1145/3647628Published:28 February 2024Publication History 0citation231DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations0Total Downloads231Last 12 Months231Last 6 weeks150 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Publisher SiteGet Access

  PublisherDOI

• Steaming Ahead: Will AI Amplify Electric Inequities?

  interactions · 2024-06-26

  article1st authorCorresponding

  As major automakers like Nissan, Mitsubishi, General Motors, and others are preparing plug-in hybrid electric cars, electric utilities are both salivating at the business opportunity and quietly fretting over potential outages that could mar the ...

  PublisherDOI

• Why older homes feel warmer than the thermostat suggests – and what to do about it

  2023-08-02

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Reframing Data's Doing

  interactions · 2023-06-28

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  No abstract available.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Daniela K. Rosner

  University of Washington

  19 shared

• Zeynep Arsel

  Concordia University

  7 shared

• Hanne Pico Larsen

  5 shared

• Bernardo Figueiredo

  RMIT University

  4 shared

• Hakan Demirtaş

  2 shared

• David Ng

  University of Illinois Chicago

  2 shared

• Patrick Guinan

  Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science

  2 shared

• Stephen P. Clipperton

  New South Wales Department of Primary Industries

  2 shared

Awards & honors

• U.S. Department of Energy Zero Energy Design Designation (ZE…
• PHIUS Certified Passive House Consultant
• Society of Building Science Educators Scholarship Chair