Socio-technical Post-occupany Evaluation : Pilot Study at Robert H Lee Alumni Centre

The University of British Columbia (UBC) is developing a Green Building Plan to manage future academic and residential building projects on campus. Numerous tasks are underway to support the Green Building Plan’s development and deliver improved building projects. Currently, campus building projects often have significant performance gaps between design and operation. UBC however, does not have a rigorous process to define these gaps and to disseminate lessons learned for future building projects. Post occupancy evaluation (POE) has been suggested as a potential tool that can provide a systematic and rigorous way to understand building performance and communicate project successes and failures. POE is a building performance assessment process completed after the building has been occupied for a period. It combines typical performance indices (ex. energy consumption) with occupant indoor environmental quality (IEQ) satisfaction levels to form a holistic building performance evaluation. POE results can help identify current problems and inform solutions within the building studied. POE can also provide valuable information to improve future design projects. This project examined if POE was a suitable tool for UBC to support the Green Building Plan’s objective to communicate lessons learned between building projects. A potential POE process for use in UBC Core buildings was created based on best practices. The POE process was then piloted in the Robert H Lee Alumni Centre (Alumni Centre). The pilot study indicated that the POE process is relatively simple to implement and requires minimal resources. The Occupant IEQ Survey was easy for respondents to use and required minimal effort, while still providing data on a diverse range of topics. Even with somewhat limited survey respondents (N=41), the POE summary report provided a comprehensive building performance summary. The pilot study results indicate that POE is a suitable tool for understanding actual building performance. Additionally, with widespread use POE will become a useful tool for capturing project lessons and informing future campus building projects. POE is recommended for implementation at UBC. Moving forward work should focus on adjusting and improving the POE template and execution process, as well as confirming program logistics and ownership. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”Applied Science, Faculty ofUnreviewedGraduat