ENHANCING UTILIZATION OF BUILDINGS THROUGH INTEGRATED ANALYSIS OF SPACE, USER, AND USER ACTIVITY

Enhancing utilization of buildings is gaining in importance in response to a challenging economy; thus, there is a need for a method that analyzes space, user, and user activity in an integrated way to provide project stakeholders with utilization information to support their decision-making about buildings. Conventional methods, such as architectural programming and post-occupancy evaluation, lack a formal relationship between user activity and other information, and therefore, are coarse-grained. This relationship has been formalized by two relatively new methods that provide fine-grained utilization information: workplace planning and space-use analysis. We characterize these two methods with focuses on their usage in different phases (i.e., planning, design, occupancy), required information that needs to be gathered, and the achievement and limitations in terms of three criteria, i.e., consistency, efficiency, and transparency. This characterization would not only help project stakeholders select and use a method that best meets their purposes for enhancing utilization of their buildings, but also provide researchers with promising research topics regarding enhancing utilization of buildings.