Post occupancy evaluation in a green building - a case study

Abstract

The man has forced his super powers on the natural environment to make his life more comfortable. As a result the natural environment has been responding to the man by changing the climate. We are now experiencing the repercussions of the climate change. Now the man has realized the threat that he is facing and this is the time for immediate action with total commitment. The new concept of "Sustainable Development" was innovated as a solution and "Sustainable Built Environment" plays a major role within this new innovation. As a result many world organizations have established several systems including guidelines and LEED was one of those rating systems which was established by U.S Green Building Council. Due to the reason that the man has been encouraged towards constructing of green buildings, the importance has arisen to find out whether occupants of the green buildings were truly satisfied about their workplace environment. Therefore, in this study one of the LEED platinum rated green building was deeply evaluated, with respect to "Thermal Comfort" which was known as the person's psychological state of mind. From the analysis, it was found that the selected workplace has located within the extended comfort zone but, physically the occupants were not thermally comfortable. Then after conducting a further analysis to find out the reasons for this contradictory situation, it was found that there had been several design aspects that were lacking in the building which had to be considered in making the occupants thermally comfortable. Therefore, further studies were recommended from this research to make the workplace completely satisfied for the occupants. This research showed while ensuring the great standards I within the green buildings, the designers need to be daring enough to look beyond the standards to make the occupants satisfied within their workplace.