What is building performance - just energy efficiency, low greenhouse gas emissions? Something to do with BREEAM, LEED or WELL certification? A productive building that maximizes return for the investor? The term building performance is used frequently by many, yet few people can provide a good definition of the concept. This website is dedicated to the discussion of this subject, and hopes to contribute to a generally accepted theory of building performance and its analysis. It provides a communication hub in support of the book on Building Performance Analysis published by Wiley in 2018 and for discussing the many aspects of building performance. The content of the page and book is based on over 20 years of research and teaching on the subject and related fields by the author.
Particular interest are:
Next to Building Performance Analysis, I have now also published Building Performance Basics: an introduction to delivering buildings that work. After all, after BPA follows BPB! Building Performance Basics is a short booklet that aims at BSc and MSc students, and for those starting to work in the industry.
If you want to raise above the competition, then High Performance Building is the way to go. To learn more about HPB, theere is a chapter (10) on this subject in the book Building Performance Analysis. You can also join a course on the interface between architecture, engineering and building services.
Building performance analysis implies an effort to quantify building performance - in other words, to put numbers on 'how well' a building does what we want it to do. There are four main approaches to do this: physical measurement/monitoring, computer simulation, expert judgment and stakeholder evaluation.
Unfortunately our toolset is not complete; there are performance aspects where some of the approaches simply are not yet available. In other domains, the outcomes may vary across the quantification methods, leading to the notion of 'building performance gaps'.
A good solid understanding of what building performance is, and how to quantify it, is essential for all involved with building performance.
Pieter de Wilde
Professor
Department of Architecture,
Faculty of Engineering,
University of Strathclyde,
United Kingdom
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