Getting Real: Post Occupancy Research & Evaluation of LEED Buildings—Presentation

Sustainable building practices have the potential to save millions of dollars annually while helping to preserve the health and beauty of the natural surroundings.  To evaluate the full impact of these benefits, building performance must be measured and studied with meaningful data. Although many case studies of sustainable buildings have been produced, few are grounded in a quantitative understanding of the actual performance of their sustainable features.  Acknowledging this, the City of Seattle enlisted Paladino and Company to conduct an ambitious post occupancy evaluation of two of its key new sustainable buildings in the downtown Civic Core, the new Seattle City Hall and the Seattle Justice Center.

The approach taken was to identify a set of 20 Indicators – measures of performance that document the increase or decrease in a measurable quantity that represents one significant aspect of sustainability.  The performance of City Hall and Justice Center were quantified relative to each of the 20 Indicators.  The resulting data will be used to help City project managers make wise decisions about future buildings and set a precedent for the analysis of future building performance.  This presentation of the research work was delivered at the Greenbuild Conference in 2005.  It outlines the process used to develop the initial indicator set and discusses some initial study results. 

Jointly presented by:
Barbara Erwine, Paladino and Company
Lucia Athens, City of Seattle