Post-occupancy evaluation (POE)

Revision as of 16:00, 4 April 2023

Abstract

In the 1960s, problems in building efficiency, especially from the building user perspective were observed. That led to the emergence of post-occupancy evaluation (POE) as a tool and system which supports the identification and evaluation of critical aspects in building performance^[1]. Zimring and Reizenstein described POE as the “examination of the effectiveness for human users of occupied designed environments”^[2].

Nowadays, POE is applied in the building industry, primarily in the early or late stages of project management, with a focus on energy performance, indoor environment quality, occupants’ satisfaction, and productivity^[3]. Applying POE in the early stages of a construction project helps to reflect on mistakes identified in similar previous projects, optimize the new building according to the most recent standards, and to extend its life cycle. On the other hand, if using POE in the late stages of project management it mainly serves as a feedback provider on the performance of a building after construction and occupation.

Depending on the level of detail for each evaluation, three analysis options can be used: indicative, investigative, and diagnostic. Thus, the POE can be a simple walk-through evaluation (indicative), a more detailed and formal data collection (investigative), or a large-scale project review (diagnostic)^[4].

The process

• Essential tool for the built environment (architecture.com)
• Evaluation = process of obtaining feedback on the building’s performance
  • Feedback loop to enhance continuous improvement process (Zimmerman & Matin, 2001)
• Collects relevant evaluation information to impact the design and functionality of future buildings (Ministry of education, 2016)
• Evaluation will be undertaken after the building is occupied for a specific time
• Collects information on energy use and user satisfaction
  • Energy performance
  • Indoor environment quality
  • Occupants’ satisfaction
  • Occupants’ productivity (Li et al., 2018)
    • improved fit between occupants and their buildings
• Identify problem areas in existing buildings, to test new building prototypes and develop design guidelines and criteria for future buildings (architecture.com)
• Help to highlight problems that can be addressed and solved (netzerocarbonguide.co.uk)
• Provide lessons to improve design and procurement
• Optimize service
• Questions on the way:
  • Is the building performing how intended in the design? How well is it working?
  • Does the user get what they expected?
  • Are people comfortable?
  • Do they understand how to use the building?
  • How does the building performance in terms of energy and carbon emissions?
  • Are the internal environment conditions healthy and promote well-being and productivity? (netzerocarbonguide.co.uk)
  • Have the project/sustainability outcomes been achieved?
• Data can “protect” the building industry from always making the same mistakes
  • Wasting time and money
• Definition from 1980: examination of the effectiveness for human users of occupied designed environments (still referred in current articles)
• Tool allows facility manager to identify and evaluate critical aspects of the building performance (Preiser, 1995)
• Intended use of a building or space can change between conception/design phase and its completion
  • POE can be used to identify the new requirements or functions and provide the basis for necessary changes (Zimmerman & Martin, 2001)
• General problem: Designers and clients/occupants evaluate buildings differently
• Net-zero Goal: achievement only possible with measurement of actual operational energy used by a building to know what true operational carbon footprint of the building is (netzerocarbonguide.co.uk)
• Benefits:
  • Continuous improvement
  • Better space utilization/reduction of waste of space
  • Reduction of energy
  • Cost and time saving/reduce operational expenses
  • Validation of occupants’ real needs
  • Improve competitive advantage in the marketplace/gain competitive edge
  • Increasing efficiency of the design of space and systems or equipment
  • Decisions made of real information and not assumptions
  • Increasing knowledge for designers and designer's firms
• Same information can be used to improve design and operational problems in the next project

Levels of POE

1. Indicative

• Rapid evaluation, before the building contract is concluded, no reflection on the final performance, useful insights, and can impact future projects (architecture.com)
• Simple as a walk-through evaluation, selected interviews as part of it or separately, simple occupants’ surveys (Ministry of education)

2. Investigative

• More detailed, independent evaluators, during the second year of occupation (architecture.com)
• Requires formal data collection techniques, interviews, and questionnaires, used for a detailed evaluation of physical project outcome and project success (ministry of education)

3. Diagnostic

• Investigations by independent evaluators, resolve significant persistent performance issues and can start at any time (architecture.com)
• Reviews are comprehensive and generally initiated for large-scale project reviews, in case of serious problems, as part of research projects, require expert advice and management (ministry of education)

History of POE

(Preiser, 1995) + (Li, et al., 2018) + (Zimmerman & Martin, 2001)

• 1960 introduced – but not as POE
  • Reason: significant problems experienced in building performance with particular emphasis on the building occupant perspective
  • First noted in institutional care facilities (hospitals, nursing homes) and “correctional facilities”
  • Sim van der Ryn & Victor Hsia “Systematic assessment” from the occupants’ point of view
  • Georg Baird “study” of the physical environment and emotional sensations experienced by people with office buildings
• 1975 assessment called POE
• 1981 POE was seen as logical final step of cyclical design process
• 1988 POE textbook
  • “Process of evaluating buildings in a systematic and rigorous manner after they have been built and occupied for some time”
• 1996 Building evaluation techniques
  • 120 evaluation concepts, techniques, and tools
  • “How to do POE”
• 1997 Preiser & Schramm: Building Performance Evaluation
  • POE was one of six internal review loops
• 2002 Industry accepted definition
  • “Any activity that originates out of an interest in learning how a building performs once it is built (if and how it has met expectations) and how satisfied building users are with the environment that has been created.”

POE today

• POE is no norm/ standard practice yet
• Has developed rapidly over the last decade
• Will continue growing
• More people will realize the importance of evaluating real-time performance
• Important role of occupants' feedback
  • Major focus of POE studies
  • Conduction of occupant surveys
• Purpose highly case-dependent
• Many decisions are made on base of assumption
  • POE provides real information to improve next projects
• Many designers and other key participants in the design process have never heard of or been involved in a POE
• POEs are still far from being an ingrained part of the facility delivery process

Application

• Apply to obtain feedback on building’s performance in use after it has been built and occupied
• Collects information on building and energy use and user satisfaction (architecture.com)
• Plays important role in the life cycle of a building
  • Feedback loop
• Wide range of activities & benefits
  • Assessment of building performance
  • Exploration of relationships between inhabitant behavior and building resource use
  • Optimization of the indoor environment for inhabitants
  • More informed decisions about future building design
  • Opportunities to enhance the dialogue between design teams and their partners (Li et al., 2018)
• Can be implemented in the early stages in project management
  • Feedback from older projects
  • What can be done differently/can be improved
  • Wishes from occupants
  • Energy performance
  • (smart) tools necessary in the building
    • Can user work with it
    • Does it has to be implemented again?
    • improve new buildings by learning from previous mistakes
• Can be implemented in the final stages of the project management
  • Feedback tool
  • Is the performance as intended
  • Does the building meet the outcomes formulated in the project brief
  • Is the building working as planned
  • Are current occupants happy
  • Do the tools work
    • controlling instrument

Limitations and future improvements

Limitations

• POE results are mostly context-based
  • Gained knowledge difficult to generalize
  • Difficult to feed back to the building industry
• Frequent lack of integration between design, construction, and operation phases of a building
• Limited on linking back their evaluation to the phases were most responsible for the relative success and failures
• Designers have not fully benefitted from POEs
• Reports/papers are often full of technical figures and charts
• Academic researchers are the main developer and users of POE
• POE is often a discrete activity
• Often independent from the ongoing building management (Li et al., 2018)
• Lack of agreed and reliable indicators
• Potential liability of owners
• Exclusion from current delivery expectations
• exclusion from professional curricula
• Many designers and other key participants in the design process have never heard of or been involved in POE
  • POEs are far away from being a part of the facility delivery process
• Usually done as a one-time exercise, shortly after the building is completed
• Facility delivery process does not recognieze the concept of continual improvement
• No ongoing involvement of the designers
  • Designers are almost never paid to contribute to late stages
    • Go back and review the outcomes
• Building industry has no overall research and development focus
• POE is often not taught in design education
  • Primarily used through social designers or researchers
    • Not part of the standard facility team
• No time or fundind is budgeted to perform them
• To many stakeholders
  • To many different tools, “languages”, goals
• Keep costs as low as possible
  • Could result in bad outcome for future users
• Current indicator to not consider if it is helpful for the users
  • misleading indicators
  • Better-certified building will ask for higher rents, even though it is unclear if the intended functions are performing
  • No relevant performance indicator
• Little incentive in the industry to change standard practice
• POE can show under performance
  • Can result to tenants moving out (Zimmerman & Martin, 2001)

(Note: Article from 2001 – check current certification systems)

Future improvements

• Should be implemented in all projects
• How the building is performing in use to help fine-tune the building and inform future projects
• To test new building prototypes (architecture.com)
• Develop design guidelines and criteria for future buildings
• FM will benefit greatly from including POE
• Integrated project delivery
  • POE experts already part in the conception/design phase
• Improvements according to Li et al. (2018)
  • From one case-study to continuing investigations
  • Few carefully collected indicators
  • From high-level to detailed
  • From research-oriented to owners/occupants-oriented
  • From academia to industry
    • Like existing certification systems
  • From independent to integrated
• There is nothing that limits its use to new buildings or one-time events
• Good fit continues to be an issue over the life of a building as the use of the space changes and organizations’ needs change
• More research needs to be done
• POEs are needed to close the loop between intention and reality
• Better communication between stakeholders (Zimmerman & Martin, 2001)
• The more designers, clients, and other members of project teams learn about how their buildings perform in use, the better their next buildings are likely to be in terms of energy use and meeting the client’s needs (netzerocarbonguide.co.uk)

Annotated bibliography

"For the annotated bibliography, we pick 3-10 references among all our references that are particularly interesting? So no comments for every single reference?" "Yes, correct. Think of it as a "further reading" list, where the mystery of what is hiding behind each recommendation is somewhat reduced."

Provide key references (3-10), where a reader can find additional information on the subject.

1. Zimring, C. M., & Reizenstein, J. E. (1980). Post-Occupancy Evaluation. Environment and Behavior, 12(4), 429–450. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916580124002
2. Preiser, W. F. E. (1995). Post-occupancy evaluation: how to make buildings work better. Facilities, 13(11), 19–28. https://doi.org/10.1108/02632779510097787
3. Zimmerman, A., & Martin, M. (2001). Post-occupancy evaluation: Benefits and barriers. Building Research and Information, 29(2), 168–174. https://doi.org/10.1080/09613210010016857

References

1. ↑ Preiser, W. F. E. (1995). Post-occupancy evaluation: how to make buildings work better. Facilities, 13(11), 19–28. https://doi.org/10.1108/02632779510097787
2. ↑ Zimring, C. M., & Reizenstein, J. E. (1980). Post-Occupancy Evaluation. Environment and Behavior, 12(4), 429–450. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916580124002
3. ↑ Li, P., Froese, T. M., & Brager, G. (2018). Post-occupancy evaluation: State-of-the-art analysis and state-of-the-practice review. Building and Environment, 133, 187–202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2018.02.024
4. ↑ Ministry of education. (2016, February). Post-occupancy evaluation report. Stonefields School. https://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Primary-Secondary/Property/Design/Post-occupancy-evaluations/POE-Stonefields.pdf