Ex post evaluation of buildings

Literally, ‘evaluating’ means to assess something’s ‘value’. It would seem that the term orginated in the banking world, where evaluation stands for appraisal in terms of the stock exchange, and for determining prices in cash. In the case of evaluations in the discipline of architecture, it is relevant to distinguish between product orientated evaluations – for instance, of a commission, design, contracting or realised building – and process orientated evaluations: for instance, of the course of the process from initiative up to and including usage and maintenance; or solely honed to the design process. In this contribution we are concentrating on ‘ex post’ (afterward) evaluation of buildings. For a study of an ‘ex ante’ (before) evaluation we refer to the contribution by Hulsbergen and Van der Schaaf
Important questions include: is a building used in accordance with the intentions of all involved parties? Are daily users satisfied with their accommodation? To what extent does the actual energy consumption fit the expected energy consumption? To what extent do laymen and experts agree on its architectural quality? Is the building designed and constructed according to the standards of the Building Code?
In order to understand the design and be able to interpret the results of a product evaluation, it is important to include the implementation process in the evaluation. How has the planning process come about? On which considerations are the design decisions based? What kind of expertise was used in the programming phase, the development of the architectural concept, and other stages of the process? Is it characterised by an inter-action of design and research and an effective participation by clients and users? To what extent did legislative prescriptions and economic constraints act on the design?