Big Buildings: How They Challenge Evaluation Thought and Practice

Abstract

The size distribution of the non-residential building stock in the United States is skewed, with a very large number of small buildings and a small number of very large ones. As figure 1 reveals, just two percent of the nation’s nonresidential buildings account for 32% of the nation’s nonresidential floor area; five percent of the buildings account for 47% of the floor area (U. S. Department of Energy, 1981). This conformation of the nation’s physical inventory of buildings — of which many building professionals and their research cohorts are but dimly aware — will be the primary influence on the evolution of the theory, method, and practice of both “post-construction evaluation” and “post-occupancy evaluation” (PCE/POE), transcending the otherwise useful distinction drawn by Anderson and Butterfield (1980). This influence will be pervasive, affecting what attributes and effects are to be measured, to whom the measurements are to be reported, and how the measurements are to be made. Moreover, many of the building evaluation practices and perspectives employed to date and oriented to custodial environments provide little precedent or preparation for what is now required for evaluating discretionary or entrepreneurial environments. Herein lies the challenge to evaluation thought and practice.