Post occupancy evaluation of daylighting and the thermal environment in education building

The School of Architecture at Portsmouth has moved into its new building in December 2013. The new building features a number of environmentally friendly design characteristic, such as advanced natural ventilation, daylighting and a ground source heat pump. The relocation of the architecture programmes has provided an opportunity for a Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) study to provide data that can assist the students in understanding the role of human factors in controlling the internal conditions of their working spaces. Whereas POE studies have gained an increasing attention recently, there are a limited number of POE studies that focus on newly occupied higher education institutions. Working closely with the University Department of Estates, the project architect and an independent advisor this study examined the internal conditions and perception of comfort of the new Eldon West to assess how well the building performs for those occupying it. The evaluation includes conducting occupant satisfaction surveys and monitoring the internal environmental conditions of the building using temperature and light data loggers and hourly temperature rerecords obtained from the Building Management System (BMS). This paper reports the results of the first phase of the occupant satisfaction survey (both students and staff) assessing their perception of comfort and personal preferences against comfort codes and building regulations.