It is widely believed that sustainable building design strategies create improved indoor environmental quality and should, thus, be associated with improved occupant comfort, satisfaction, health, and work performance relative to buildings designed around standard practices. Yet, this belief remains a hypothesis with little empirical support.

The study described in this report represents a beginning step in understanding the human factors impacts of sustainable design practices. The report summarizes the findings from a study of the Philip Merrill Environmental Center building in Annapolis, Maryland. The building, which houses the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, was the first LEED Platinum building in the United States.

The Occupant Indoor Environmental Quality Survey, a widely used building evaluation instrument developed by the Center for the Built Environment at the University of California at Berkeley, was implemented in November 2004, almost four years after the Foundation moved into the new building. In addition to the survey, a series of interviews and discussion groups were held with staff one year after the move into the new building. This report includes a detailed summary of the survey findings with additional clarification of occupant responses gathered from the interviews and discussion groups.

The Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) process provides necessary feedback to the building industry, fostering the improvement of existing facilities as well as contributing to knowledge that improves the planning, design, construction and operation of future facilities. Surveys of building users are a key component of successful POEs. The Center for the Built Environment (CBE) at the University of California, Berkeley, has developed a Web-based survey that can quickly and inexpensively collect occupant perceptions about the environmental quality of the workplace, as well as opinions of other audiences involved in the design, construction and maintenance of the facility. The growing database of standardized survey responses can be analyzed for trends in building technologies and design techniques. CBE has developed and continues to develop tools that facilitate the analysis and display of the data collected by the survey. Case studies demonstrate that the survey has been effective in helping pinpoint problems.

This paper presents results of over 34,000 survey responses to air quality and thermal comfort questions in 215 buildings in US, Canada, and Finland. Results show that 80% or more of the occupants expressed satisfaction with their thermal comfort in only 11% of the buildings surveyed. Air quality scores were somewhat higher, with 26% of buildings having 80% or occupant satisfaction. With respect to thermal comfort and air quality performance goals set out by standards, most buildings appear to be falling far short. Occupant surveys offer a means to systematically measure this performance, and also to provide diagnostic information for building designers and operators.

This paper summarizes the results of a large indoor environmental quality survey in office buildings, comparing green with non-green buildings. On average, occupants in green buildings were more satisfied with thermal comfort and air quality in their workspace. However, the average satisfaction scores in green buildings for lighting and acoustic quality were comparable to the non-green average. Comparing complaint profiles of those dissatisfied with lighting and acoustic quality, a higher percentage of occupants were dissatisfied with light levels and sound privacy in green buildings. Our results suggest a need for improvements in controllability of lighting, and innovative strategies to accommodate sound privacy needs in open plan or cubicle office layouts in both comparison groups.