Center for the Built Environment

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.