KG Working with you on our UBS headquarters at 5 Broadgate, and later on the Teaching and Learning Building at University of Nottingham, we were impressed by how you gather and impart information that’s incredibly nuanced. Just sending a survey by email will not get you the information you need. You need to be able to read both verbal language and body language. There’s a wealth of knowledge that goes hand in hand with that.
ZS Crucially, you also need to know what part of a building and what conditions a user is referencing. I think that’s the value of the kind of evaluation we offer. The key short-term benefit to the architect or operator is knowing how they can get more out of the building. The longer-term benefit is having the knowledge to take them forward when they do a building with similar features again.
I generally consider an email survey an inferior type of study. Exploring in person why a building user thinks what they think is crucial to understanding the future possibilities or alternatives for a space. With a questionnaire, you lose the opportunity to dig into why, for example, someone called a certain feature “fine” but shrugged while they said it – what are they really thinking? Or to appreciate the spatial constriction, excessive brightness or whatever other aspect they may be describing.
The data we collect is intricate, no matter the type of building. Our reports are comprehensive, and we take care to ensure the user chooses their coded responses. This is to reflect their accommodation and tolerance of given conditions, and helps to inform client action in a pragmatic way.
