Exploring the use of new school buildings through post-occupancy evaluation and participatory action research

Abstract

This paper presents the results of the development and testing of an integrated post-occupancy evaluation (POE) approach for teachers, staff, pupils and community members using newly constructed school buildings. It focusses on three cases of UK secondary schools, demonstrating how users can be inspired to engage with the problems of school design and energy use awareness. The cases provided new insights into the engagement of school teachers, staff and young people regarding issues of sustainability, management, functional performance and comfort. The integrative approach adopted in these cases provided a more holistic understanding of these buildings’ performance than could have been achieved by either observational or more traditional questionnaire-based methods. Moreover, the whole-school approach, involving children in POE, provided researchers with highly contextualised information about how a school is used, how to improve the quality of school experiences (both socially and educationally) and how the school community is contributing to the building's energy performance. These POE methods also provided unique opportunities for children to examine the social and cultural factors impeding the adoption of energy-conscious and sustainable behaviours.

Keywords:

• post-occupancy
• school design
• sustainable schools
• energy performance
• sustainable lifestyles

Acknowledgements

This paper reports results that were part of the PostOPE research project at Loughborough University, supervised by the late Professor Dino Bouchlaghem and carried out whilst the authors were working as his research associates. This paper is dedicated to late Professor Bouchlaghem, an exceptional academic who is greatly missed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

The research project was supported by two leading construction companies, Loughborough University and the EPSRC.