BUS Methodology presentation from 21st November 2013

CIBSE YorkshireBUS Methodology

21st November 2013

#YCIBSE

Tweeting tonight….

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Agenda

• BUS Methodology – what and why?Richard Reid, Arup

• A partners view – non-domestic buildings Roderic Bunn, BSRIA

• A partners view – domestic buildingsKate Fewson, Closed Loop Projects

• Q&A

44 1985 - Sick Building Syndrome

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Post-occupancy Review Of Buildingsand their Engineering (PROBE)

PROBE Studies – www.usablebuildings.co.uk & www.cibse.org

66 Arup became the custodian of BUS in 2009

2009A NEW CUSTODIAN

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Utilised in over 25 different countries

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OVER 700 BUILDINGS8 BENCHMARK SETS9 LANGUAGES

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£8M fund, 80 plus buildings surveyed using BUS methodology

TSB Building Performance Evaluation (BPE) Programme

1010 Soft Landings

Extended aftercare and POE in years 1 to 3 after handover, with periodic monitoring and review of building Performance.

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BREEAM – New Construction & In-use

New Construction• MAN 04 – Stakeholder Participation

• MAN 01 – Sustainable Procurement

In-use• Part 2 Building management

- Health & Wellbeing (15%) – inc.Occupant Satisfaction Surveys

BREEAM

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Why would I use the BUS methodology?

So what is the BUS methodology?

Building Use Studies (BUS) is anOccupant Satisfaction Evaluation method for…..

1515 Non-domestic buildings

1616 Domestic buildings

1717 Transient buildings

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Standardised paper questionnaire……


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Or an internet questionnaire….


2020

Looking at 46 variables……….

What is the BUS methodology?

Other, 3

Space, 4

Lighting, 5

Control, 5Design, Image, Needs, 5

Noise, 6

Air Quality, 7

Thermal Comfort, 11

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Which allows each building to be benchmarked…..


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……….including each variable


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......with results for each variable split as follows


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Whilst also providing insightful qualitative (comments) data


“The design of the windows makes no sense at all. Can't understand why one control operates a whole wall of windows - causes a lot of arguments.”

“The children can easily escape into main road as there are no doors to children’s library and main door is sensor driven.”

“We have adapted our routines to fit the building. They now work relatively well”

“I find the lighting really good and easy to work in, feels good.”

“Easier to get stressed when too warm.”

“Visitors get very confused with signage.”

Partner Network

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BUS Methodology Partner Network –

Why?

Partner Network

2727 www.busmethodology.org.uk

2828 Current Partners

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• BUS Methodology Branded website

• BUS Partner Pages

• Portal Access – setup and download surveys, upload data

• Training – every 12 months for up to 4 people

• Quarterly workshops

• Annual update of benchmarks

• Arup advice and support for every survey

Becoming a partner – On-going benefits…

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Or you can buy a survey……• From any partner• Each partner is free to set the cost

Typically there is a range of costs from….

• £1000 – Small internet survey with benchmarked results

Up to…..

• £6,000 – Large paper survey with benchmarking and detailed interpretation report and recommended actions

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Future Development Plan

0‐12 months ‐

• Actively develop partner network in UK• Establish as the UK standard as part of POE• Stakeholder engagement through workshops to understand

what our partners want/need from the service - FEEDBACK• Ensure part of solutions like - Soft Landings and NABERS

1‐5 years

• Additional building specific data for more analysis - E.g. Naturally Ventilated, Deep plan versus narrow plan – Pre-visit questionnaire – New benchmarks

• Analysis software to a web platform• Actively develop partner network in international markets• On-going feedback from partners & industry

Future Development Plan

Occupant surveys Can they inform design and operation?

Roderic Bunn

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Roderic Bunn, building performance analyst at BSRIA

• Ran the PROBE post-occupancy project 1995-2001

• Manages the Soft Landings initiative at BSRIA

• Building Performance Evaluator for the TSB BPE programme

• Technical Evaluator for TSB Innovative Refurbishment

programme

3 The built environment experts

Just a bit of history 1996 – 2001 The PROBE Project Energy consumption up to a factor of 3 higher than 1990 benchmarks Feature packed, but not functional Unmanageably complex controls Advanced natural ventilation often fragile, buildings usually very leaky

2006 – 2010 Low Carbon Buildings Performance 23 projects awarded DECC grants for renewables and Carbon Trust mentoring Again, even more feature-packed, but not functional Controls and BMS still unmanageably complex Buildings simply not finished at handover Energy consumption over 3 times Part L compliance calculations LZC technologies often risky, fragile and deliver less than promised

2011 – 2014 £8 million TSB-funded Building Performance Evaluation ………Same again? Sadly looking very much like it… Energy sub-metering unhelpful and often inaccurate Excessive layering of bespoke controls

Buildings simply not finished off properly, and not operationally ready Domestic dwellings now catching the complexity disease!

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Why occupant satisfaction surveys matter 1. They provide insights on what will make a building comfortable and productive

2. They provide guidance on critical factors for success:

• Control over environment • Human perceptions of comfort and discomfort conditions • Tolerance to disturbance • Stable or unstable conditions • Quality of facilities management • …and a whole host of usability and manage-ability issues…

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Behavioural

Technical

Soft Landings

Feedback tools for different contexts Listed on www.usablebuildings.co.uk

Aptitude, expertise and experience

Analysis & reporting

Core techniques

Energy analysis (TM22 or equivalent)

Understanding of benchmarking

Knowledge of BMS reporting &

submetering

Physical tests of various kinds (eg thermography)

Occupant surveys (BUS or equivalent)

Facilitation techniques

Checklist-based assessments (eg BREEAM)

Other methods (DQIs etc)

Quality assured Complete and unabridged

Narrative, backed up by good data

Context fully recorded

Forensic skills: process & technical

Numerate (energy)

Literate (reporting)

Objective & analytical, Good facilitation skills

and diplomacy

Consistent Honest Transparent Comparable Factual Accessible

Where do occupant surveys fit in building performance feedback?

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• Your design assumptions will be poorly informed

• You won’t find out how well your design assumptions work in practice You won’t learn from your mistakes – or your successes

• Under-performance will come as a shock (but it might not be your fault…)

• You won’t be able to see where the problems lie – controls poorly configured, clients running things wastefully, over-densely occupied spaces, or something else...

• You’ll join generations of building designers who have gone into denial over under-performance, because pride, premature (and false) marketing of sustainable achievements, and slavery to a culture of blame has frustrated attempts to deliver a more professional service

• You can spring yourselves out of this trap – set out to know more!

If you don’t get feedback from occupants…..

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So how can you use occupant surveys?

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N

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Which one is the new office?

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• Focus on things that really matter and it ain’t necessarily the factors that designers hold dear, like specific temperature or levels of electric lighting

• BUS helps us to understand the key issues that determine occupant satisfaction

• Control over environment • Speed of response by facilities managers to calls for changes • Occupant densities • Storage and circulation • Building legibility

So what?

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Measure Intention Revenge effect Possible solution Comments

General systems

Improve comfort provision and energy efficiency

Automated windows, blinds, lights etc. can be controlled to provide optimum conditions

Reduced occupant tolerance. Increased dependence on management. More complaints

Include occupant over- ride facilities

Imposition of automatic control can be very irritating. Try not to sacrifice adaptive opportunity

Increase technology to provide added "flexibility"

Less management input necessary to make alterations from time to time

More management input to look after the additional systems. Still requires some alterations too

More realism. Better integration between physical and human systems

Careful discussion of brief and design options to avoid fantasies

Increased BEMS control

Better control and management information provided

More load for operator, who may not be fully familiar. Local interventions more difficult

Don't over-centralise. Allow for local decisions on overrides etc

Particularly important to have local over-rides in mult-tenanted buildings

Complex BMS provided On-site use of BMS to control building

Expertise not hired immediately after handover, existing caretakers not IT literate, formal training not provided, BMS moved onto IT server, designers lose remote access

Don't over-centralise, provide local manual overrides, include controls company in aftercare support

Soft Landings aftercare provision can reduce excessive consequences

Outsourced facilities management and BEMS operation

Professional service. Leaves occupiers to concentrate on their core business

Business requirements for environmental services not so well understood, so systems run generously, wasting energy

Tighter contractual requirements or retain in-house control of operation

Third parties often not on site out-of-hours when anomalies tend to occur. Don't outsource the feedback loop!

Risk assessments for a Soft Landings register Examples of revenge effects in buildings

"From Feedback to Strategy " Bill Bordass and Adrian Leaman

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What could the future hold? 2008 survey

Covered by CIBSE Codes & Guides

As above, but needs more thought

These have metric potential

Don’t even go there…

Possible metrics

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Where do we all go from here? • Clients Champion the use of the BUS survey to inform client requirements, to inform

the design brief and to inform the design response. And manage occupant expectations right the way through the process

• Designers Invest in surveying some of your previous buildings and understand what worked and what didn’t. Drop design pretension, and get real about the role of human factors in building performance

• Building owners Use it as a standard element of post-occupancy evaluation

• Let’s work together to develop some meaningful performance metrics that can be set at design, and meaningfully tested in the Soft Landings aftercare period

• BUS is good enough to be the de-facto method for understanding occupant satisfaction Let’s share results, communicate good practice, and put people first in design – in a statistically rigorous way

22 The built environment experts

• Everyone’s talking about Soft Landings A good thing, and some are adopting it, but most still worrying more about how much it costs and not about how much under-performance is already costing….

• Everyone’s talking about the ‘Performance Gap’ Even if they don’t really appreciate the complexity of the issue, such is our fixation with ‘design’ as the solution to everything

• Government is getting interested Government Soft Landings and POE will be mandated from 2016 for central government contracts along with that other magic bullet: BIM

• Government wants guaranteed project outcomes: “Define outcomes and measures of success” and “Collect and compare actual operational performance against planned targets”. In other words – proof

• Carbon Buzz has been re-launched in 2013 Operational energy data for a building can be compared against a reference benchmark dataset for the building typology. Allegedly shows the ‘performance gap’, but it’s more complicated than that

What else is happening?

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Soft Landings [email protected] www.softlandings.org.uk More useful stuff on www.usablebuildings.co.uk

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Building Use Studies (BUS) methodology:domestic questionnaire

Kate FewsonClosed Loop Projects

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lancastercohousing.blogspot.com

• 35 dwellings – co housing, 6 private sale

• passivhaus, CSH6, LTH

• biomass district heating, hydro, PV

• MVHR

• common facilities

• collaboratively designed

• University of Sheffield – Fionn Stevenson_occupants

• Leeds Met University – David Johnston_energy

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lancastercohousing.blogspot.com

Won Passivhaus Trust award 2013 – social housing

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BUS domestic questionnaire• Background

• Residence overall

• Needs

• Special circumstances

• Comfort

• Noise

• Lighting

• Health (perceived)

• Control

• Environmental design features

• Lifestyle

• Utilities costs

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Summary variables - sliders

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Summary variables – against UK 2011 housing dataset

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Drilling down – temperature in winter

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Drilling down – noise

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Drilling down – control over environment

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Indices

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Comments give more detailNoise:

"I don't hear next door which is good; can hear a whisper between rooms inside,”

“Serious noise issue between ground floor flat and noise from next door house.”

“Flushing toilet and water running through drain creates an amazing noise. Can hear light switch noises easily.”

“It feels like there's no sound insulation between floors.”

“Can be too quiet in house. When opening the door the noise of the river frightens the cat.”

“Surprised at how much noise I can hear if neighbours wear shoes on the stairs.”

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In a nutshell, BUS domestic questionnaire:

• Used to get good overview – quick to complete

• Can sit alongside other methodologies

• Provides benchmarks

• Gives dataset comparison

• Means you can focus in on variables for further investigation

• Comments add depth

• Gave great insight into life at Lancaster Cohousing Project

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Thank you

[email protected]

07916 282839@closedloopBPE

21st November 2013

www.busmethodology.org.uk

Thank youAny Questions?

BUS Methodology presentation from 21st November 2013

Design

Transcript of BUS Methodology presentation from 21st November 2013