by Shane Henson — August 26, 2011—A new guide, Pitstopping—BSRIA’s Reality Checking process for Soft Landings was recently released by the Building Services Research and Information Association (BSRIA), a test, instruments, research and consultancy organization providing specialist services in construction and building services.
According to BSRIA researchers, recent post-occupancy evaluations of new buildings—often featuring the latest technical innovation and renewables—have revealed that there are some shocking gaps between the design intention and the reality of some new buildings’ energy consumption. This is particularly worrying because the performance shortfall is happening despite tougher building regulations, notes BSRIA.
Innovative technologies devised to deliver low-energy consumption and comfortable conditions are often difficult to commission, unreliable in operation, and complicated to maintain, adds BSRIA. The resulting problems require designers to adopt a strategy in order to “reality-check” their design proposals throughout a project.
BSRIA’s Pitstopping guide describes a process that allows construction teams to periodically reconsider critical design issues by focusing on issues of usability, manageability and maintainability from the perspective of the end user.
Facilities personnel working in buildings whose design and construction team used the guide should find that their buildings and building systems perform closer to the original design than others do, and that they have lower energy consumption than facilities where the team did not use the guide.
The guide is specifically designed to run within Soft Landings Framework (BG 04/2009), a form of graduated handover for new and refurbished buildings. Soft Landings activities will assist in gaining credits under BREEAM 2011, a leading design and assessment method for sustainable buildings.
According to the guide, pitstops may occur during any of the following construction stages:
- Briefing—scheme design check
- Design—technical reality check
- Post-construction—tender stage reality check
- Construction—pre-handover reality check
- Initial aftercare year 1—post-handover sign-off review
- Initial aftercare year 2—Soft Landings check progress for 18 month aftercare review
- Initial aftercare year 3—Soft Landings check progress for 36 month aftercare review
