Urban and Sailer investigated the relationship between workplace green building certification and occupant satisfaction. They “analyz[ed] DGNB (German Green Building Council), BREEAM, and LEED certification and rating systems and match[ed] this with quantitative research into office buildings’ occupant satisfaction. The aim [was] to explore whether highly rated buildings are also perceived as excellent by users…this research [the reported research] focus[ed] on the socio-cultural rating criteria within the DGNB system.”
Data from a post-occupancy evaluation at a DGNB certified office building indicated that “an excellent Green Building rating does not allow the prediction of high occupant satisfaction within a certified building.”
Markus Urban and Kerstin Sailer. 2018. “Checking a Green Building Myth – The Relation of Occupant Satisfaction and Rating Levels in Offices.” In Suvi Nenonen, Alpo Salmisto, and Vitalijia Danivska (eds.) Proceedings of the 1stTransdisciplinary Workplace Research Conference, Tampere, Finland, pp. 47-48.
Sally Augustin, PhD,a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.