ARCHITECTURAL CRITICS AS ANOTHER BUILDING STAKEHOLDER
A global perspective
Introduction
The editors invited a global perspective on “Architecture Beyond Criticism” based on 30 years of evaluating nearly 200 buildings in Australasia and Europe. In this chapter post-occupancy evaluation (POE) is redefined in the context of current practice. As buildings are primarily built to live or work in, building stakeholders’ perspectives on productivity and well-being are an essential component of POE. In documenting stakeholder experiences and views the importance of objectivity in prompting perspectives and neutrality in their documentation is outlined. Experiences of critics are compared with those documented in POEs; architectural critics writing for journals, spontaneous public criticism and architect critics within three POEs. Specifically, the chapter considers the architecture profession’s interest in stakeholders’ needs and their opportunities for stakeholders to contribute to architecture that has largely been beyond criticism. Finally, the trend, globally, towards increased involvement of private corporations in public facilities is considered and discussed in light of the changing opportunities for POE. This chapter concludes that architectural critics’ experience of buildings can be complementary to that of other stakeholders and is therefore a valuable contribution to POE.
Defining post-occupancy evaluation
The following definition of POE is offered:
• POE is the architectural process of generating recommendations to improve well-being and productivity by optimizing the fit between design and use of buildings under operational conditions. It is achieved by communicating all stakeholder groups’ experiences of existing buildings and generating architectural recommendations about design and use. Communicating experiences of buildings allows adjustment in perceptions and reconciliation of expectations with the subject building’s performance.
• POE is applied throughout building life-cycle. Lessons learned from previous evaluations inform briefing (programming) and design review. Evaluations in the first few years of a building’s life are used to fine-tune new buildings and in the planning of subsequent buildings. Evaluations of older buildings guide planning and design for changes.
• All stakeholder groups (people with interests in buildings) are included in POEs and they speak for themselves. To avoid evaluator bias, the building is used as the objective prompt to elicit stakeholders’ comments. Thus, the building’s support or frustration of productivity and well-being are addressed in three dimensions of building evaluation, namely, design, use, and conditions.
• Stakeholders’ testable observations about cause and effect are documented. For example; “We switch on electric heaters because the air conditioning is too cold in summer.” Participants often contribute parameters of design/use solutions to problems and the architect evaluator’s recommendations to improve well-being and productivity are based on balanced consideration of all relevant stakeholders’ experiences of building features.
• Organizations’ POE reports document experiences of all relevant parts of a building and building features and qualities are addressed specifically in each part of the subject building, as their performance may vary substantially in different parts of the building and under different operating conditions.
• Whilst buildings are the common subject of POEs, the process can equally be applied to landscape design, ships, or other built environments.
Various routine or non-routine reviews and assessments are undertaken at the completion of projects. Stakeholders may bring information from such assessments to a post-occupancy evaluation, but these other studies do not constitute POEs themselves. For example, Post Implementation Review (http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_74.htm), benefits realization management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefits_Realization_Management), survey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey), questionnaire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questionnaire), and various technical studies help professionals to assess the performance aspects of buildings. The latter includes compliance, mechanical equipment, energy consumption analysis, air leakage, materials review, security equipment, and electrical equipment review.
Stakeholders
Stakeholders include groups of people with a “stake,” or interest, in the subject building. Well-being and productivity are the client organization’s primary interests and they are partly dependent on stakeholder experience of buildings; thus POE is stakeholder-centred. Stakeholders with interests in public and commercial buildings are those groups who work there, their clients, and those who created and maintain the building. Specifically, stakeholder groups include: owners and/or their property managers; employees – who work in a building and those responsible for productivity within; people served in the building – customers, students, prisoners, clients, residents, tenants, guests, patients, visitors, etc.; the project team – client, project manager, architect, engineer, builder, etc.; maintenance team – facility manager, plumber, electrician, cleaner, etc. Evaluations can include other groups affected by the building, such as neighbors, architectural critics, people with disabilities, community, etc. and future generations – an example below refers to POEs in which future generations’ (environmental) interests were specifically documented
Everyone is an expert on their own experience of buildings
The fundamental purpose of POE is to communicate stakeholders’ experiences of buildings as a basis for generating recommendations for improvements. The architect’s website described one building in published notes in terms of its layout, appearance, intended effects of light, and intended flexibility. An architectural awards jury gave it a prize. By contrast, occupants report regular sewage smells in their working spaces, uncontrolled noise interrupting meetings, excessive mechanical plant noise, safety concerns about windows, lack of security, excessive light impairing sight, switching problems, blackouts and unwanted light, air quality causing discomfort, illness, sick leave, and rainwater leaks through the roof, wall, and doors.
It is unusual for occupants’ experiences to be heard in architectural criticism. The “loud silence” about such unheard diversity of experiences is perhaps what Frank Duffy refers to as “the dog that did not bark” (Mallory-Hill et al. 2012). It is not clear whether the award jury saw photographs, drove past, or looked inside the building with so many problems, but it seems unlikely that they listened to occupants.
Property managers, architects, engineers, and builders seldom report defects. On the few occasions when unwelcome experiences are mentioned, responsibility for them is attributed to each other or to the occupants. Terms of architectural engagement rarely encourage architects to review occupants’ experience a year or two after completion. Frank Duffy described the removal of section M of the Royal Institute of British Architects’ services (Mallory-Hill et al. 2012). He writes “[it] locked the profession in an intellectual prison. Hopefully, we architects haven’t yet collectively thrown away the key.” Perhaps institutes of architecture will find ways of consulting occupants more thoroughly when granting awards.
Learning lessons
The buildings we evaluate have been designed and approved by clients and architects from conception to completion, and most design features function satisfactorily for most purposes under most conditions. However, there are sometimes serious and unnecessary failures that the architects and their critics are unaware of. Outsourced project management and fear of being held accountable may be reasons why project teams do not take a responsible approach to managing failure.
Example: classroom design for alertness
In POEs of mechanically ventilated buildings, the unanimous summary of many stakeholder groups is that air quality is among the worst aspects. In one unpublished survey in a European country reported to the author, 23 out of 25 schools were found to be too hot in both summer and winter, and a technical review found that the same 23 out of 25 failed to meet energy efficiency standards.
Alertness is important in order for a population to be receptive to its education upon which the country’s productivity, innovation, and skills depend. Lethargic students and teachers sharing germs in overheated and stuffy classrooms may have a significant effect on a nation’s productivity when those generations of students become the workforce in subsequent decades. If those planning, designing, and building the 25 schools had taken time to read the lessons learned from our POEs of Scottish schools they might have ensured that classrooms were comfortable and efficient. Furthermore, air quality problems can be costly in legal disputes (Wilding 2013).
Example: wash hand basin design to minimize spread of infection
Populations’ well-being and productivity are also affected by health and hygiene, as reported by Dr Val Curtis of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine’s Hygiene Centre. “There’s a strong economic case for investing in good hand washing facilities in our schools. Britain’s twelve million cases of norovirus, gastroenteritis, MRSA, e-coli and now swine flu infections are mainly down to dirty hands” (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine’s Hygiene Centre 2010).
Scottish schools are equipped with wash hand basins at a suitable height for children; however, POE stakeholders reported that the basins were too deep for younger children to easily reach the tap. The lesson was learned but not used by a neighboring education department designing a subsequent school that we also evaluated a few years later – it also had a basin too deep for the smaller children to reach across.
Objective review – the universal set of building experiences
Stakeholders’ building experiences are subjective. The first stage of POE is to objectively prompt and document stakeholders’ experiences of architecture in a neutral manner. At this initial stage, it is important that comments are recorded without judgment so that stakeholders respond freely. Thus, even comments that are based on assumptions that the interviewer may understand to be false are occasionally documented. At a later stage the stakeholder findings are considered and recommendations are generated for design and used to support stakeholders’ well-being and productivity. Recommendations can include some action to correct misunderstandings.