Are you or your clients planning an office relocation or refurbishment? Or do you need to review an existing workspace to ensure it still supports the organisation?

Unlike other sectors, architecture and the real estate industry do not automatically collate customer feedback to improve their current and future products and services. However, BREEAM, WELL and BIM all require a Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) to be conducted to achieve certification, and RIBA and BSI recommend them as best practice.

Evaluations are multi-layered, including feedback and other metrics like space and cost analysis, and can be tailored to an organisations’ requirements. As such they are not as expensive as often thought! But they can establish how a workplace supports an organisation and what improvements can be made. POE can also evaluate how well a new workplace meets the design brief or provide a benefits’ realisation case to justify project spend. 

It's good practice to conduct POEs on a workspace on a regular basis. And for architects and interior designers it’s a good idea to arrange a POE with clients one year after project completion to evaluate how the project is performing and what improvements, if any, could be made. This opens up a dialogue for future project work.

Over the years I've carried out over 100 POEs in the corporate, public and higher education sectors and can provide an experienced, balanced approach. I've also authored two leading industry guides on workplace evaluation – the BCO’s “Guide to Post-Occupancy Evaluation” (2007) and more recently “A Practical Guide to Post-Occupancy Evaluation and Researching Building User Experience” (2023).

Drop me a line if you’d like to know more or are considering how to evaluate a recent or forthcoming project. Or come along to my full-day Masterclass at MillerKnoll's new showroom in Clerkenwell on 25 September.