Post-Occupancy Evaluations vs. Pre-Occupancy Evaluations
The Chicago office of Gensler was our second stop in our firm visit line up over this semester. We were hosted by: Randy Guillot, FAIA, LEED AP, Principal, Design Director, Health + Wellness Firmwide Practice Area Leader at Gensler.
Within Healthcare Design: Gensler aims to blur the lines between:
Patient experience is your brand
Interdisciplinary research and teaching
Thinking outside of the hospital
Technology, Analytics and Simulation
The wellness economy
In achieving these goals Randy mentioned that Gensler offers post-occupancy evaluation services to their clients.
“Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) is the process of obtaining feedback on a building's performance in use. The value of POE is being increasingly recognised, and it is becoming mandatory on many public projects. POE is valuable in all construction sectors, especially healthcare, education, offices, commercial and housing, where poor building performance will impact on running costs, occupant well-being and business efficiency.”
- BRE Group (https://www.bre.co.uk/page.jsp?id=1793)
Randy Guillot stated that many clients choose not to engage in the service, but he feels like it is an important service. He mentioned a rising use of pre-occupancy evaluations in healthcare. There are a few ways you can engage a client in a pre-occupancy evaluation:
There are life size mock ups, where a nurse will be invited into the space and asked to engage in a simulation of a typical day. In this scenario it helps the architect understand the scenarios where furniture and arrangements within the space will need to adjust.
Virtual reality allows the client to walk through their space.
Augmented Reality allows the client to have a mix of seeing the space as it is currently, and how it can evolve.
During a pre-occupancy evaluation, IPads are provided to take notes and complete surveys. But ultimately, it gives the architect a perfect opportunity to address issues and problems in the design before the building is built, which will lead to savings in cost over time.
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