Energy Performance Analysis

Soft Landings

Postive Effects from Soft Landings

Soft Landings contains many positive effects which are:

Soft Landings Review

Soft Landings is a building delivery process built upon the RIBA process. Its aim is to allow designers and constructors improve the operational performance of buildings and provide valuable feedback to project teams.

In most building contracts, support from designers and contractors ceases following the end of the defects liability period. Soft landing seeks to extend this level of support for the first three years after completion (HCC, 2012) by providing a ‘structure for project teams to stay engaged after practical completion, hand-holding the client during the first months of operation’ (BSRIA, 2009).

The framework provides a unified vehicle for engaging with outcomes throughout entire building life, from briefing (RIBA stage A), design (RIBA stages B-F) through construction (RIBA stage K) and to delivery and beyond (RIBA stage K) (Wilmott Dixon Group, 2010) so that project team and client can gain greater clarity at the inception and briefing stages about client needs and required outcomes (BE, 2011).

It is expected to foster the building of relationships that would keep project teams involved beyond practical project completion in order to assist in fine-tuning and system de-bugging until occupiers become accustomed to their buildings and understand its design and how it functions and is controlled to get best use of it. This should result in bringing operational performance closer to client expectations, design predictions so as to reduced running costs (UBT, 2010).

The framework includes procedures and example checklists that act as signposts for design teams to help end-users get to grips with their often unfamiliar and complex buildings and proposes a full programme of post-occupancy evaluation that the project team can use to improve a building's performance to make it more sustainable over the long term.

Stages of Soft Landings

Soft Landings is divided into 5 stages.

Stage 1 - Inception and Briefing

Constructive dialogue between designer, constructor, client and end user.

Stage 2 - Design Development and Review

Review of insights from comparable projects and detailing on how the building will work from the point of view of the manager and individual users.

Stage 3 - Initial Aftercare

Become acquainted with building; understand interfaces and systems before occupation.

Stage 4 - Initial Aftercare

Continuing involvement by the client, conducting occupant satisfaction surveys, which form part of the soft landings POE process design with feedbacks to enable building team benefit from lessons learned.

Stage 5 - Years 1 to 3, Extended Aftercare and POE

Monitoring and giving feedback over the first three years of occupancy to bridge the gap between design expectation and actual performance.

All references can be found in the literature review page, which can be seen here.