Design Solution · Digital & IoT
Design Solution · Dream about it
Thorough commissioning and POE feedback to hit design performance.
Comprehensive commissioning plus post-occupancy survey feedback are used to tune the building toward its design performance after handover. Continuing engagement past completion closes the gap between modelled and measured energy.
Soft Landings is a structured handover framework — codified by BSRIA in the UK — that extends the design team's engagement through commissioning, occupation and a defined post-occupancy period, with the specific intent of closing the performance gap between the modelled energy target and what the building actually uses in occupation. The gap is substantial and well-documented in the broader literature: the Innovate UK Building Performance Evaluation programme found median in-use energy use routinely two to three times the modelled prediction in commercial buildings, and the mechanisms are understood — controls that were never fully commissioned, occupant behaviour diverging from design assumptions, and plant that has been overridden rather than tuned. This record carries no provided evidence verifying the performance outcome for this specific project, and the claimed benefit is framed as a process rather than a quantified result, which is accurate but means the specifier cannot assess how much of the energy target is being attributed to Soft Landings as a distinct contribution. The honest trade-off is contractual: Soft Landings requires the design team and the building services contractor to remain engaged and accountable past the defects liability period, which the standard RIBA appointment and JCT contract do not provide for without explicit fee and programme provision. Procuring Soft Landings as an optional extra tends to produce the documentation without the accountability — for it to close the performance gap it needs to be a contractual obligation with clear remediation triggers.
#soft landings #commissioning #post-occupancy #performance gap