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So you鈥檝e spent the past three months working on the detailed design of a high spec office in the centre of London. The contractor is about to bring your drawings to life and in 15 months the building will be handed over to the tenants. In the normal scheme of things that might be your cue to move on to the next project. But don鈥檛 forget about it just yet 鈥� the British Council for Offices thinks you should do a little more work in a couple of years鈥� time.

The reason is that it has recently published a best practice guide, compiled by Swanke Hayden Connell Architects, that is intended to convince the industry that it should carry out post-occupancy evaluations. It also provides occupiers, developers and designers with practical advice on how to go about this.

With office design becoming ever more innovative, it is increasingly important to close the design loop and give architects and contractors feedback on how buildings and their systems work in practice. 鈥淥ver recent years there have been momentous changes in the way people work and occupy offices,鈥� says Richard Kauntze, chief executive of the BCO. 鈥淥ffices that are not designed to meet the needs of the workforce hinder productivity, affect morale and ultimately have a negative impact on the profitability of a business.鈥�

In the past, most contractors and designers have shown little interest in how their buildings actually perform in use and most clients haven鈥檛 wanted to pay them to do so. So considering how feedback can be added to the conventional procurement process is one of the main aims of the guide.

What鈥檚 in a post-occupancy evaluation?

It is absolutely critical that businesses sit up and realise the effect their offices can have on the bottom line

Paul Harrington, PriceWaterhouse Coopers

Evaluations are typically carried out between six and 12 months after occupation, with responses from occupants gathered through questionnaires and technical surveys. They address areas ranging from overall comfort 鈥� temperature, noise, fresh air levels 鈥� to softer issues such as desk space, storage and location of equipment. As well as evaluating the building in particular, the data can be used to improve designs in general.

Paul Harrington, the estate director for Pricewaterhouse Coopers, says it carries out post-occupancy evaluations of its buildings six months after occupation. 鈥淚t is absolutely critical that businesses sit up and realise the effect their offices can have on their bottom lines,鈥� he says.

So how can specifiers and designers interpret the results? And how can they feed them back into future schemes?

To start with there is not a standardised survey for post-occupancy evaluation, so comparing the feedback from one building to another is not always possible. 鈥淣o one size fits all,鈥� says Bill Bordass of the Useable 黑洞社区s Trust. 鈥淲e and other bodies 鈥� most recently the BCO 鈥� have been around the houses on this many times and come to the same conclusion.鈥� The BCO guide lists no fewer than 21 recognised methodologies.

According to Bordass there are lessons that can be pulled out of most surveys and used to inform designs. A lot of the problems with buildings are almost trivial, he says, but can have unintended consequences. A typical example is where a building has been designed to maximise the use of daylight but the problem of glare has been overlooked. The result is that occupants close window blinds, turn lights on and leave it like that.

Members of the design team need to understand that they must take a personal and professional interest in how the building operates after completion

Bill Bordass, The Useable 黑洞社区s Trust

Bordass argues that the best way to address these problems is to start the evaluation process at the outset of the construction project. And even before then, designers and contractors would be far more aware of post-occupancy issues if they took some time to understand the virtues and shortcomings of the facility that the client was looking to replace.

鈥淏y doing this, members of the design team understand that they must take a personal and professional interest in how the building operates after practical completion,鈥� says Bordass. Once it is completed and occupied, its success can be measured against these same criteria.

Another project that is looking at how to evaluate the performance of building is Soft Landings. This group, which makes use of research led by Cambridge university, has highlighted the importance of the handover period to the future happiness of the building鈥檚 occupiers. It is examining the lack of communication and feedback at this crucial stage, and one project the designer and contractor were actually resident on site during the move-in period to help occupants bed in and establish a good relationship for future monitoring.

A BSRIA project group will meet in February with a view to creating a code of practice based around the Soft Landings process; this will look at ways of matching design expectations with occupational outcomes.

Other bodies are also looking to promote the use of post-occupancy evaluation. The UK Green 黑洞社区 Council is researching the methodologies available for post-occupancy evaluation, and may produce its own code of practice. At the recent BSRIA Briefing, Tim Byles, chief executive for Partnership for Schools, said it wanted to carry out a post-occupancy evaluation of every 黑洞社区 Schools for the Future project.

Despite the increasing emphasis on off-site manufacture and standardisation in design, the reality is that the construction industry still builds prototypes that need feedback in order to determine what works and what does not. Maybe the time for a change has arrived.