Post occupancy evaluation in architectural education and practice

Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) is a research method that examines how buildings function; when the functions include social life, social science methods must be employed. This paper advocates using POE social research both in architectural practice and in architectural education to promote evidence-based design. Based on four decades of experience teaching POE to undergraduates at the University of California Berkeley, we show how POE can be conducted and taught: gather the research questions, set up teams to collect data using different data collection techniques, and analyze the results by comparing and contrasting the findings of each team. We discuss the importance of POE research to architectural practice, education, and accumulated institutional knowledge.