Dr. Henrik Schoenefeldt has given a talk on Building Performance Evaluation in the context of education, research, and practice at the Annual SCHOSA Conference. This conference was held at the Royal Institute of British Architects on 9 and 10 April 2015.
The talk was entitled ‘Building performance Evaluation – an education endeavour joining practitioners, students and researchers’ and it explores some of the challenges of using Building Performance Evaluations (BPE) as affective learning tools in architectural design, exploring the practical challenges of giving design a true empirical basis or of translating BPE findings into useable design knowledge for architects.
The idea of empirically-based design in practice and education was explored, taking into consideration the role of both the social and physical sciences. Historical prespectives were also be provided to illustrate the role the cultural curriculum could take in illustrating to students the principles and origins of evidence-practice. Based on the his research on the ventilation of Palace of Westminster and climate control in nineteenth-century glasshouses, Henrik showed some the earliest examples of building performance evaluations in which the recording of measurements, and experimental studies were combined with surveys on user perception.
Using two projects that Henrik has led at the University of Kent as examples, the second part of the talk illustrated the potential of collaboration between academics, clients, practitioners, students and in addressing the some of challenges of performance-led practices of low-energy design in the UK.