Application of Soft Landings in the Design Management process of a non-residential building

ABSTRACT

A study into the design processes involved in Soft Landings is an important aspect to realising energy efficiency and environmental sustainability in buildings. Previous Soft Landings papers have focused mainly on post occupancy evaluations and aftercare. No comprehensive study has been attempted with respect to Soft Landings at the design stage. In response to this gap, this paper investigates the application of Soft Landings during the design stage of a central government building in London. It provides an insight into the working processes of a Soft Landings design team and its interaction with other team members and end users. Information from interviews with the design team, minutes of meetings, walk-through in the designed spaces were used to explore how design decisions were reached. It highlights the role the Soft Landings Champion played to ensure that the environmental sustainability objectives of the project were carried from design to construction. The paper also explains the fundamentals of Soft Landings and its potential as a client-driven management tool. The paper concludes by highlighting the implications of the result to designers, contractors and clients.

KEYWORDS:

• Soft Landings
• Design Management process
• sustainability
• non-residential buildings
• energy performance gap

Acknowledgement

The authors will like to sincerely thank all the professionals and end users who contributed to findings in this research. Their time and participation in the interviews is deeply appreciated. They are also indebted to the government department who gave authorisation for the building to be used as a case study. Finally, they thank the department of Architecture, University of Kent for all their support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Victoria Gana http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1562-920X

Notes

1 SLF: Soft Landings Framework; this literature was originally developed by BSRIA in 2008.

2 Soft Landings Core Principles; this literature was developed by BSRIA and the Soft Landings User group.

3 How to procure Soft Landings.