The impact of design interventions on occupant satisfaction: A workplace pre-and post-occupancy evaluation analysis

Abstract

Understanding how occupants perceive the built environment is a growing interest in sustainability research. This article looks into how design interventions in a workplace renovation project impact occupants’ satisfaction through a pre-and post-occupancy survey. In two years (from 2016 to 2018), an interdisciplinary research team from the University of Minnesota administered online occupancy surveys at the headquarters of the Cuningham Group, a national renowned design firm in Minnesota. The surveys included 12 indoor environmental quality categories (with 26 criteria on a 7-point Likert scale) that measured how occupants perceived their existing workplace and the renovated environment. Mann–Whitney U tests and Chi-square tests were conducted for 12 indoor environmental quality categories between the pre-and post-surveys. Results showed that occupants’ satisfaction significantly increased with the design interventions in the renovated workplace. Perceived work performance and health also improved in the post-survey. Among 12 indoor environmental quality categories, occupants perceived the biggest improvements in lighting such as adjustability and quality of task lighting. Design interventions in electric lighting, especially improved ease of control, effectiveness of automatic systems, plus visual and acoustic comfort, contributed to occupants’ satisfaction. Overall, the pre-and post-occupancy evaluation survey analysis confirmed the positive impact of the renovated Cuningham Group facility. The article presents a comprehensive measure of the impact of the data-driven design interventions derived from pre-and post-occupancy evaluation surveys on occupant satisfaction.