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Building-In-Use Assessment: Foundation of Workspace Psychology

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Building Performance Evaluation

Abstract

User feedback studies, in which occupants provide information on performance of the building in use, are an important source of knowledge. A rich assortment of ideas, concepts, and observations has evolved from amassing, analyzing, and applying environmental feedback from office building occupants, using tools such as Building-In-Use (BIU) Assessment. This approach standardizes data gathered from building user surveys to ensure that user feedback is usefully applied to diagnosing building performance at three identifiable levels of productivity: individual, group, and organizational productivity. Collecting, interpreting, and applying user feedback has generated a tri-partite model of workspace comfort that goes beyond simple user preferences and satisfaction ratings. The concept of functional comfort connects user satisfaction with worker productivity by defining effective or successful workspace in terms of environmental support for occupants’ tasks and activities. Psychological comfort acknowledges the importance of privacy, territoriality and environmental control. Additional research into occupants’ behavior in work environments will lead to coherent theoretical frameworks that will expand existing knowledge, generate fruitful research, and create supportive work environments that add value to organizations’ human capital.

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Correspondence to Jacqueline C. Vischer .

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Vischer, J.C. (2018). Building-In-Use Assessment: Foundation of Workspace Psychology. In: Preiser, W., Hardy, A., Schramm, U. (eds) Building Performance Evaluation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56862-1_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56862-1_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-56861-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-56862-1

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