Post-occupancy evaluation

Measured performance and the degree of success

Post-occupancy evaluation is where the Total Building Performance framework stops predicting and starts measuring. The campus opened progressively from 2023, so the measurement record is still young — which is itself the most important finding of this study.

What is being measured

Energy & water use

Building automation and metering dashboards allow measured energy use intensity to be compared with the design energy model. Publicly available figures are limited; obtaining the first full operating year is the single highest-value piece of evidence.

Thermal conditions

Zone temperature and humidity logs from the BAS show whether wards are running at design setpoints or being over-cooled in practice.

Air & containment

Pressure-cascade and air-change verification at commissioning, then periodic re-validation; the pandemic period stress-tested this in service.

Acoustics

The weakest evidence base. Measured ward background noise levels and any noise complaints are needed before the acoustic mandate can be scored with confidence.

User experience

Staff and patient surveys on daylight, view, wayfinding, walking distance and privacy — the qualitative half of POE.

Degree of success by mandate

Thermal comfort4 out of 5Strong: comfort was solved by form first and plant second, which is the harder and more durable route.
Indoor air quality4 out of 5Strong on paper and tested at handover; the pandemic then stress-tested it in service.
Acoustic comfort3 out of 5Adequate and well-intentioned, but the least documented mandate and the most vulnerable to operational noise.
Visual comfort5 out of 5The project's clearest success and its signature — daylight and view are structural, not decorative.
Spatial comfort & function4 out of 5Strong, with an honest and deliberate trade-off between campus generosity and staff walking distance.
Building integrity4 out of 5Good: buildability was treated as a performance mandate, not just a productivity score.

Overall reading: a high degree of success against the stated goals at design and delivery level, with verification of operational performance still incomplete.

Where the project clearly succeeded

  • • The therapeutic landscape is not a graphic; it is the organising logic of the plan, and it delivers daylight, view and public realm simultaneously.
  • • Integrating acute, community and long-term care on one campus removes institutional handoffs that patients normally absorb as friction.
  • • Passive-first environmental design means the low-energy outcome is embedded in the fabric and is hard to lose through later operational drift.
  • • DfMA and prefabrication converted a productivity mandate into a quality and durability gain.

Where success is partial or unproven

  • • Acoustic performance is the least documented mandate; measured ward noise levels are needed before any confident claim.
  • • The low-rise campus form lengthens staff and logistics travel — automation mitigates but does not erase it.
  • • Openable, garden-facing wards create a standing tension between natural ventilation and infection-control containment that lands on operational discipline.
  • • Whether measured energy and comfort match the simulation models remains an open question without published post-occupancy data.

Lessons learnt

  1. 01Brief the model of care, not the building — the strongest decisions here were operational choices that later read as architecture.
  2. 02Simulate early, when geometry is still cheap to change; simulation used late only documents decisions instead of shaping them.
  3. 03Defend performance features with life-cycle cost, or lose them at value engineering.
  4. 04Standardise the repeated unit and prototype it physically; one corrected mock-up pays back hundreds of times.
  5. 05Budget commissioning as a phase with its own programme and its own risk, not as the tail of construction.
  6. 06Design for disruption: the projects that absorbed COVID-19 best were those with off-site manufacture and a live 4D model to re-plan in.
  7. 07Close the loop — without post-occupancy measurement, the performance framework stays a design-stage argument.