RE Scotland has successfully secured a project to undertake Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) of nine new educational facilities for the Scottish Funding Council (SFC).

The driver behind the project is the SFC's need to demonstrate 'value for money' on their capital expenditure, ensuring that the buildings they support are not only designed and procured in line with estates funding guidance, but work to the benefit of the occupants - in this case students and staff.

POE is a recognised way of providing this feedback by evaluating the performance of a building project throughout it's lifecycle - from initial concept through to occupation.

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BRE will conduct a review of the operational, functional and strategic performance of the college buildings during occupation. The results will inform the SFC's future projects and processes.

"The links between building occupants and the buildings in which they live and work are hugely important particularly in the education field where a new building or refurbishment can facilitate the delivery of new and better ways of learning and teaching" said Mindi Hadi from BRE's Building Design Consultancy team.

Mark Batho, Chief Executive of the Scottish Funding Council, said: "This work will help us to understand the impact that our funding of major college and university buildings has on students' learning and their experience of further and higher education.

"It will provide valuable lessons which can be used to improve the experience for students in the future through good design and construction."

Laura Birrell, Associate Director at BRE Scotland commented: "The POE process can provide information to building users and raise awareness of the issue, as well as creating comfortable productive environments for students and staff."

(GK/JM)