A systematic post-occupancy evaluation in green-rated high-rise office buildings

This paper investigates indoor environmental parameters and their interaction with building occupants in green-rated high-rise office buildings. Although the focus of Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) in green buildings has been shifted from building energy and environmental performance towards building occupants who are the primary users of buildings to identify a potential for increased productivity in green buildings, the link between green design strategies - consequently indoor environmental parameters, and building occupants has not been fully identified yet. The methodology involves a systematic POE of four green-rated buildings in Seoul, Korea. By analysing both physical measurement and occupant evaluation data collected from Korean office workers, this paper demonstrates the commonalities and differences between objective physical conditions and subjective occupant evaluations. While the green-rated buildings have green features including solar panels, rainwater and grey water systems, the most considerable features of green building such as natural ventilation and operable windows are not actively used. While the occupant perceptions of the indoor environment seem to be correlated to each indoor environmental parameter of the buildings, some subjective evaluations tend to show stronger correlations with other environmental parameters. Health symptoms such as fatigue, headache and dry throat tend to increase with 'underfloor' ventilation systems.