AWARDS SPECIAL BUILDING PERFORMANCE
immediately after handover, for the fi rst year of occupation, and for the second and third years,’ says Clark. The framework covers fi ve main stages: Inception and Briefi ng; Design Development and Review; Pre-Handover; Initial Aftercare and Aftercare for Years one to three. ‘The procedures are designed to augment standard professional scopes of service, not to replace them,’ says Clark. ‘Soft Landings is effectively a palette of activities that improves the performance outcomes of buildings because designers and contractors remain involved with buildings after practical completion. They help fi ne-tune the systems and ensure that occupants understand how to operate their buildings.’ There is an increasing body of evidence
that shows the disconnect between design intent and building performance, from the PROBE studies published in the Building Services Journal in the 1990s, through to the results of the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) Building Performance Evaluation (BPE) programme currently being reported. ‘It is not unusual to see energy consumption some three to fi ve times higher than the designers predicted,’ says
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Roderic Bunn, a building performance analyst at BSRIA, and part of the TSB reporting team. ‘Soft Landings will close that performance gap,’ claims Bunn. ‘Well, it will if you do it from the very beginning of a project.’ The government is suffi ciently convinced
that Soft Landings is worth the investment. It is adopting its own version of the BSRIA framework called Government Soft Landings (GSL). A policy document is currently informing an implementation plan and in-house guidance. ‘It will follow the core values of the soft landing’s approach,’ explains Roy Evans of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) BIM Core Team. ‘Soft Landings and post-occupancy evaluation (POE) together give the services profession the chance to learn about projects that are in use and to get a real understanding of what the end-users’ needs are. This will inform their designs in the future,’ adds Evans. Some public sector clients are already heading down this road; both Essex and Hampshire County Councils are busy trialling Soft Landings. BSRIA is about to release its latest publication on the subject: How to
Time critical
Tamsin Tweddell, of Max Fordham, says there are fi ve critical factors for a successful Soft Landings project: The Soft Landings approach must be initiated early in the project to infl uence the briefi ng and conceptual design The client must be actively involved in the Soft Landings approach The project team must actively engage with building users and managers The Soft Landings approach must be embedded in the contract documents and embraced by the main contractor and relevant sub-contractors The commissioning must be well planned and carried out thoroughly, both before completion and post occupancy
March 2013 CIBSE Journal
9
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