Assessing occupant comfort in an iconic sustainable education building

• Main Authors: Rick Best, Brian Purdey
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: UTS ePRESS 2012-09-01
• Series: Australasian Journal of Construction Economics and Building
• Online Access: https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/AJCEB/article/view/2537

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The building that houses the Mirvac School of Sustainable Development at Bond University is the first educational building to achieve a six Green Star rating from the Green Building Council of Australia. It has won numerous awards since opening in August 2008 including being judged the RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) </span><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10pt;">Sustainable Building of 2009. After more than two years in use a post-occupancy evaluation study was carried out to assess the performance of the building from the viewpoint of the users; both resident staff and transient students.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm -2.3pt 6pt 0cm;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10pt;">Results for factors such as lighting, thermal comfort, noise and air quality. were compared to benchmarks established by the Usable Buildings Trust. The evaluation also assessed the occupants’ perceptions of the building’s impact on their own productivity.</span></p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm -2.3pt 6pt 0cm;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10pt;">Users generally find the building provides a comfortable work environment although a number of areas of performance were noted as posing some concerns. These included intrusive noise in some parts of the building and some issues with glare in daylit teaching spaces. Such concerns were found to be in accord with the results of previous studies and they highlight some recurrent problems in “green” buildings designed to maximise the use of natural ventilation and natural light. These design challenges and how occupant satisfaction is to be measured and benchmarked are also discussed in the context of this comparative building study.<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></strong></p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span>