Analysis of operational data about energy and water uses to inform social houing design

In real operation, buildings rarely perform as predicted during the design phase. The mismatch between the expectations around the energy performance of new buildings and the real energy bills has been defined in the literature as the “performance gap”. There has been a growing awareness that new low energy buildings in particular have unexpectedly high energy bills resulting in a significant disappointment of landlords. This fact becomes even more important when considering housing interventions for low-income people who are more vulnerable to energy poverty. Moreover, as minimum energy requirements become more stringent, housing is becoming more complex in terms of the technology of building systems needed to provide an adequate level of comfort while minimizing energy and water consumption. As a result, interest in implementing feedback processes regarding the operation of buildings in real use conditions has increased. In the literature, these feedback processes have been defined since 1970s within the research field of the post occupancy evaluation (POE). POE is a systematic study of a building that allows the assessment of how well building match users' needs and expectations once it is occupied and the identification of ways to improve building design and performance. In recent years, the POE is becoming part of the building process, as it helps to narrow the gap between design intents and actual building performance. The importance of this approach is also demonstrated by the recent RIBA research “Learning from Projects” that investigates the results of construction projects to develop new insight for use by clients, architects and engineers. POE can be structured as a multidimensional feedback process, through the use of qualitative (occupant survey, structured interviews, in field observations, etc.) and quantitative (physical measurements, building monitoring, etc.) instruments. This research mainly focuses on quantitative data, investigating the opportunity to use monitored data acquired from a building monitoring system as an instrument to identify critical design and operational issues. These can subsequently be handed over to new design projects and can improve the actual management and operation of the building itself. As in similar studies, data acquired so far are related to energy consumption, water consumption, indoor environmental parameters (air temperature and relative humidity), and occupant behaviour. Fture works will enlarge the analysis, including also socio-technical methods such as structured interviews or occupant survey.