Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SHAPE (Smartness, Health Assessment and Performance Evaluation)
Reporting period: 2021-10-01 to 2023-09-30
Climate change, the need to curb energy use and carbon emissions, and the imperative to provide healthy and safe living conditions to all, are among the vital challenges we have to address today. In addition, the recent coronavirus disease (COVID19) pandemic, due to the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, is threatening our safety at a global scale. Buildings can shelter us, elevate us, be places of community and refuge; yet, they may threaten our life, wall us off, isolate us, and harm our very habitat. Scientific evidence has also shown that most of our building stock has relevant shortcomings (e.g. poor heating, ventilation and lighting, dampness, pollutants) that can deteriorate the health of building inhabitants. With the forces of climate change, pandemics, population growth, and urbanization creating unprecedented challenges the decisions we make today to shape the buildings of our future will determine our collective welfare for generations to come. This is what the Smartness, Health Assessment and Performance Evaluation (SHAPE) project aims to address. In this era, we focus on energy transition, low carbon built environment and nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEBs). Enhancing experience of inhabitants - comfort, satisfaction, health, and well-being - is significant as well as achieving energy efficiency, smartness and high environmental quality in buildings. No comprehensive post-occupancy evaluation tool (POE) is yet available to systematically assess, in a robust and non-intrusive way, the performance of healthy and smart nZEBs from the perspective of inhabitants, and effectively combine assessment of inhabitant experience, energy efficiency, smartness, and environmental quality in building design, management and operation.
SHAPE project aims to propose, deploy, and validate a new post-occupancy evaluation tool for healthy and smart nZEBs, tracking holistically and assessing rigorously inhabitant comfort, satisfaction, health, and well-being, alongside buildings’ energy efficiency, smartness and environmental quality. The objectives of the project are (O): O1) build a framework of key performance indicators to evaluate comfort, satisfaction, health, and well-being of inhabitants alongside energy efficiency, smartness and environmental quality of buildings; O2) define and test objective and subjective measurement methods to robustly collect building and inhabitant data in a non-intrusive way; and, O3) propose the integration of a new post-occupancy evaluation tool into building standards, rating systems, and into the practice of the construction industry.
SHAPE project aims to propose, deploy, and validate a new post-occupancy evaluation tool for healthy and smart nZEBs, tracking holistically and assessing rigorously inhabitant comfort, satisfaction, health, and well-being, alongside buildings’ energy efficiency, smartness and environmental quality. The objectives of the project are (O): O1) build a framework of key performance indicators to evaluate comfort, satisfaction, health, and well-being of inhabitants alongside energy efficiency, smartness and environmental quality of buildings; O2) define and test objective and subjective measurement methods to robustly collect building and inhabitant data in a non-intrusive way; and, O3) propose the integration of a new post-occupancy evaluation tool into building standards, rating systems, and into the practice of the construction industry.
A comprehensive interdisciplinary systematic scoping literature review was carried out. Papers, published between 2010 and 2023, were systematically reviewed. The synthesis, as part the scoping review, resulted in the ‘SHAPE Research Report: Data Synthesis of the Interdisciplinary Systematic Scoping Review’. The report compiles and groups the metrics, methods and protocols that can be used to perform data collection within POE studies. The ‘SHAPE Framework of Key Performance Indicators (FoKPIs)’ is the result of this vast interdisciplinary review. The ‘SHAPE FoKPIs’ merges metrics and methods to evaluate inhabitant experience (comfort, satisfaction, health, and well-being), together with energy efficiency, smartness and environmental quality in buildings. Inhabitant experience – comfort, satisfaction, health, and well-being – were considered as distinguished metrics. The methods were also grouped based on the way of data collection, for example, methods to elicit information, and methods to measure and monitor.
The ‘SHAPE FoKPIs’ guided the development of the ‘SHAPE Protocol’ and the ‘SHAPE Tool’. The ‘SHAPE Protocol’ systematically compiles the metrics and methods to assess inhabitant experience in a building. The ‘SHAPE Protocol’ includes the metrics comprehensively, such as the elaboration of human factors as differentiated metrics. The Protocol also includes wide range of methods. These methods include site visit, questionnaires (with temporal aspects), interview with inhabitants, interview with experts, walkthrough, measurement and monitoring. The ‘SHAPE Protocol’ contains all the documents of this procedure throughout a timeline. Based on the Protocol, the ‘SHAPE Tool’ was designed as a dashboard in which assessment and decision support components take place. The assessment components of the dashboard process the input data which was collected through the ‘SHAPE Protocol’. The output provides the evaluation of inhabitant experience (comfort, satisfaction, health, and well-being) and building. The improvement component of the dashboard recommends building design and operational interventions and improvement scenarios. The ‘SHAPE Tool’ was tested and validated through the data collected in the field studies. The ‘SHAPE Roadmap for Policy Makers and Building Industry’ recommends the use of post-occupancy evaluation procedures. As the industrial partner of the SHAPE project, secondments at VELUX contributed to the field studies of the project and training of the researcher.
The journal and conference papers, the presentations, the webinar and the expert workshop disseminated the SHAPE project widely. The comprehensive training (training courses, and workshop & conference attendances) allowed the researcher to enhance her scientific & transferable skills and knowledge as an early career researcher.
The ‘SHAPE FoKPIs’ guided the development of the ‘SHAPE Protocol’ and the ‘SHAPE Tool’. The ‘SHAPE Protocol’ systematically compiles the metrics and methods to assess inhabitant experience in a building. The ‘SHAPE Protocol’ includes the metrics comprehensively, such as the elaboration of human factors as differentiated metrics. The Protocol also includes wide range of methods. These methods include site visit, questionnaires (with temporal aspects), interview with inhabitants, interview with experts, walkthrough, measurement and monitoring. The ‘SHAPE Protocol’ contains all the documents of this procedure throughout a timeline. Based on the Protocol, the ‘SHAPE Tool’ was designed as a dashboard in which assessment and decision support components take place. The assessment components of the dashboard process the input data which was collected through the ‘SHAPE Protocol’. The output provides the evaluation of inhabitant experience (comfort, satisfaction, health, and well-being) and building. The improvement component of the dashboard recommends building design and operational interventions and improvement scenarios. The ‘SHAPE Tool’ was tested and validated through the data collected in the field studies. The ‘SHAPE Roadmap for Policy Makers and Building Industry’ recommends the use of post-occupancy evaluation procedures. As the industrial partner of the SHAPE project, secondments at VELUX contributed to the field studies of the project and training of the researcher.
The journal and conference papers, the presentations, the webinar and the expert workshop disseminated the SHAPE project widely. The comprehensive training (training courses, and workshop & conference attendances) allowed the researcher to enhance her scientific & transferable skills and knowledge as an early career researcher.
The interdisciplinary systematic scoping review is a comprehensive contribution to building research and practice, and to other disciplines. The ‘SHAPE FoKPIs’ contributes to the state of the art significantly as it distinguishes the building and inhabitant related metrics, and merges the metrics of and methods for building evaluation. The ‘SHAPE Protocol’ is an important POE procedure as the content of the protocol focuses on comfort, satisfaction, health, and well-being of the inhabitants, alongside building energy efficiency, smartness and environmental quality. The ‘SHAPE Tool’ is a user-friendly dashboard assessing buildings and inhabitants, and recommending improvements. The ‘SHAPE Roadmap for Policy Makers and Building Industry’ includes recommendations to integrate - in general - POE procedures, and – more specifically – the ‘SHAPE Protocol’ and the ‘SHAPE Tool’ into building regulations (such as the revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive), standards, policies, building certification and rating systems.
As the impact of SHAPE, the need for interdisciplinary approach to assess human factors in built environment is highlighted. The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 3: Good health and wellbeing, Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy, and Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities) are directly related to the objectives of SHAPE. The SHAPE project intersected with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. It was significant to implement the SHAPE project during the post-pandemic era in which society’s awareness on health and well-being in built environment started to raise. The SHAPE project contributes to this awareness. The project also intersected with the timeline of the Revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) in which health of inhabitants are elaborated on as well as energy efficiency of buildings. Collaboration with VELUX accomplished the intersectoral cooperation between academia and industry.
As the impact of SHAPE, the need for interdisciplinary approach to assess human factors in built environment is highlighted. The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 3: Good health and wellbeing, Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy, and Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities) are directly related to the objectives of SHAPE. The SHAPE project intersected with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. It was significant to implement the SHAPE project during the post-pandemic era in which society’s awareness on health and well-being in built environment started to raise. The SHAPE project contributes to this awareness. The project also intersected with the timeline of the Revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) in which health of inhabitants are elaborated on as well as energy efficiency of buildings. Collaboration with VELUX accomplished the intersectoral cooperation between academia and industry.