Abstract:

The Design Evaluation Project at MIT has recently completed a post occupancy evaluation of a sample of 53 elderly persons housing sites all across the U.S., the results of which are presented here. The need for an information transfer strategy is stressed, providing behavioral data in a format that is consistent with the planning-design-build process. An effective transfer of information should include as its main steps : selection, translation, organization, recruitment, monitoring, summarizing and revising, followed by publication and distribution. This whole process should be recognized as feedback at work. Testing the usefulness, effectiveness and practically of information resulting from post occupancy evaluation is a research effort in itself. To date, formats for translating data are still untested. Repetition and redundancy (in words, photographs and drawings) appear to be required; an online monitoring method is also proposed for tracking the use of information.