# Home Balconies during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Future Architect's Preferences in Lisbon and Warsaw
## 2 Materials and Methods
### Materials  
The online survey consists of an anonymous and voluntary self-completion questionnaire organised into 3 sections to be replied to in approximately 10 min. The survey starts with a \"Demographics\" section with 1 open-ended question concerning the respondents' age, and 2 close-ended questions about nationality and gender. The second section, \"Living background\" contains 3 close- and 2 open-ended questions regarding the current city location and chosen dwelling features (see Table 1 above). The main body, \"Options\" relates to the balcony's key features. It consists of a \"given-list\" matrix with 8 ranking questions addressing a specific architectural issue whose answers (the number of responses varies from 2 to 10 in each question) need to be organised by \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline
**Demographics** & & **Frequency** & **Percentage (\%)** \\ \hline Age & 22–25 & 125 & 79.11 \\  & 26–30 & 24 & 15.18 \\  & Over 31 & 5 & 3.18 \\  & Prefer not to answer & 4 & 2.53 \\ \hline Nationality & Portugal & 78 & 49.37 \\  & Poland & 72 & 45.58 \\  & Brazil & 4 & 2.53 \\  & Angola & 1 & 0.63 \\  & Romania & 1 & 0.63 \\  & Hungary & 1 & 0.63 \\  & Other & 1 & 0.63 \\ \hline Gender & Male & 48 & 30.38 \\  & Female & 109 & 68.99 \\  & Prefer not to answer & 1 & 0.63 \\ \hline
**Living Background** & & & \\ \hline Current location & Lisbon & 85 & 53.80 \\  & Warsaw & 73 & 46.20 \\ \hline Living conditions & Flat & 119 & 75.62 \\  & House & 38 & 24.05 \\  & Prefer not to answer & 1 & 0.63 \\ \hline Which floor do you live on? & \(-1\) & 1 & 0.63 \\  & 0 & 16 & 10.13 \\  & 1 & 33 & 20.89 \\  & 2 & 16 & 10.13 \\  & 3 & 29 & 18.35 \\  & 4 & 13 & 8.23 \\  & Over 5 & 25 & 15.82 \\  & Prefer not to answer & 25 & 15.82 \\ \hline The amount of balconies & 0 & 40 & 25.32 \\  & 1 & 76 & 48.10 \\  & 2 & 25 & 15.82 \\  & 3 and more & 17 & 10.76 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Demographics and living background information of survey respondents. order of preference (see Table 2 below) where the top one is the most preferable and the bottom the least preferable:  
* The first question addresses respondents' preferences about the level of thermal and acoustic comfort that a balcony should provide (direct sunlight, shading, cool and warm sensation, quietness);
* The second and third rank the most favourable orientation (east, west, north, or south), and the preferred landscape view from the balcony (street, square, garden, city skyline, waterfront, or a rural landscape);
* The fourth and fifth relate to the balcony's key aspects concerning aesthetics (size, shape, surface colour, finishing materials, height, and greenery) and connection/position with other spaces (living room, kitchen, bedroom, office, or other balconies);
* The sixth focuses on the air quality subject and tries to understand which sensation is more valued (a breeze feeling or a clean and fresh air sensation), and;
* The seventh and eighth evaluate the preferences concerning the balcony activity (from read, write, exercise, have meals, smoke, gather people, working activities, kids playground, take a break, to dry laundry) and interaction potential (a place of refuge and interaction with others, whether they are neighbours or passers-by). The questionnaire is available in English (see Table 2 below), Portuguese, and Polish to diminish eventual language barriers. The authors resorted to the Qualtrics XM software [48] to design and conduct the online questionnaire (Survey available at [[https://psychodpt.fra1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e3](https://psychodpt.fra1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e3) Sb2 NuGwOrKEUS]([https://psychodpt.fra1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e3](https://psychodpt.fra1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e3) Sb2 NuGwOrKEUS), accessed on 17 January 2022) (see Appendix A, Table A2 for