Building Performance
As owner and operator of thousands of federal properties, GSA is the largest and most diversified real estate organization in the world. This prominent position drives the agency to act as both leader and innovator in the arena of building performance.
To that end, Applied Research continuously looks for ways to improve buildings at GSA through reducing energy use, improving assessment of real-world performance, encouraging sustainable design, and more.
Recent projects in support of this effort include the following:
- Post Occupancy Evaluation – Through measurement and occupant surveys, POEs determine how a building truly performs in a real-world situation.
- Underfloor Air Distribution – To determine the effectiveness of UFAD systems, Applied Research performed a detailed case study.
- Sustainable Buildings Performance – Good research can help determine whether sustainably designed buildings deliver on their promise of higher performance. Applied Research conducted a holistic evaluation of 12 sustainably designed buildings and compared measurements such as energy and water use and occupant satisfaction to national averages for commercial buildings.
- Building Performance Assessment Toolkit – To address the need for objective, quantified measures of building performance, Applied Research developed new performance indicators to provide a strategy for quickly and cost-effectively assessing how a building is performing.
