Making feedback and post-occupancy evaluation routine 2: Soft landings: involving design and building teams in improving performance

Once a building is physically complete, designers and builders move on to the next project. Few of them stay around to learn from what they have done and pass on their insights to the occupants. 'Soft Landings' aims to extend the scope of service so that feedback and follow-through can become natural parts of the delivery of a project. It increases designer and constructor involvement before and after handover, and points the 'supply side' to more involvement with users and a careful assessment of building performance in use. The objective is more certainty in delivering buildings that achieve a close match between the expectations of clients and users and the predictions of the design team. A Soft Landings team (designer and builder) is resident on site during the move-in period in order to deal with emerging issues more effectively. It then monitors building use and energy performance for the first three years of occupation: identifying opportunities both for fine-tuning the building and for future projects. This process also creates a coordinated route to post-occupancy evaluation. The cost of the extra work is relatively small and can be balanced against gains from the learning process, less rework and better client references. Soft Landings does not require wide-scale revision of industry-standard documentation: a licensed Scope of Service document set can stand alongside most existing procurement processes.