Post-Occupancy Evaluation of School Building Performance

School buildings are multifunctional structures that accommodate severalfunctions and activities. Such activities require different environmentaland functional characteristics for their hosting spaces. This comprehensiveresearch aims to establish a multi-dimensional post-occupancy evaluation(POE) framework to assess primary school buildings’ functional andenvironmental performance. This framework provides a fast and easytool to evaluate and improve school building performance. To achieve itsobjective, the study explores different POE models, design components,and functional criteria affecting school building performance. Moreover,it discusses the impact of design parameters such as location, spatiallayout, classroom conditions, auxiliary spaces, finishing materials, andenvironmental elements on building performance. Three main factors wereconsidered: first, child development and well-being, which means meetingthe psychological, social, and safety needs of students; second is functionalsuitability, which means making sure that each part of the building isdesigned to fulfill its function and works well with other spaces; and thirdly,environmental suitability, which means creating a comfortable space thatencourages learning. The research concludes with an evaluation frameworkwith relative and absolute values for school building design parameters inseveral performance areas. The proposed model enables digital assessmentand presents evaluation results both numerically and graphically.