A BIM-based Pre-occupancy Evaluation Platform (PEP) for Facilitating Designer-Client communication in the Early Design Stage

During the briefing and architectural design process, communication between designers and clients is usually intensive and significant. However, as documented in literature, there are some gaps between the designers and clients during interactions. Unlike designers, inexperienced clients may find difficulties in reading 2D drawings and imagining how the design will be emerged after construction. This will affect the process and outcome of requirement specification and design review. It is also not easy for them to understand how their organization daily activities will be accommodated in the new built environment (such as movement patterns). This would also affect them to effectively evaluate the design solutions. In addition, although some requirement models were established, there is still demand for a platform to manage both of the client requirements and feedback, and facilitate them to review design solutions against those requirements. In order to address the problems mentioned, a Pre-occupancy Evaluation Platform (PEP) was developed. This platform contains three modules: (1) building information module; (2) user information module; and (3) pre-occupancy evaluation module. The results of validation indicated that, compared with the conventional communication process, the simulation of end-user activities can improve client understanding of the building design in terms of spatial factors and increase their willingness as well as confidence to work collaboratively with the designers. The application of requirements and feedback specification and related interface can help them to generate larger number of suggestions for improving the design solutions. Therefore, the PEP is considered to provide an effective tool to facilitate the designer-client communication. The main contributions of this research include (1) this research has lead to new knowledge on establishing a platform (PEP) for improving designer-client collaborative working efficiency during the early design stage; (2) this research has provided new insights into building up a user activity simulation model which contains both information about the building design and user organization in a project; (3) this research also provides new knowledge on creating and implementing a client requirements and feedback specification, which supports clients in conducting a systematic pre-occupancy evaluation during the design stage.