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Bouazza, T and Greenwood, D (2020) An Investigation of Performance Gaps in the Design of UK Healthcare Facilities. In: Scott, L and Neilson, C J (Eds.), Proceedings 36th Annual ARCOM Conference, 7-8 September 2020, UK, Association of Researchers in Construction Management, 766-775.

  • Type: Conference Proceedings
  • Keywords: conceptual framework, design knowledge, healthcare facilities, performance gaps, post-occupancy evaluation.
  • ISBN/ISSN: 978-0-9955463-3-2
  • URL: http://www.arcom.ac.uk/-docs/proceedings/166fe028a13acca52b886c163aa5dba8.pdf
  • Abstract:

    The ‘design performance gap’, a situation in which design fails to meet user expectations, has been increasingly discussed in recent decades. This research concerns the design of healthcare facilities and ways of improving it, through the comparison of designers’ performance and the satisfaction level of users. A literature review is first presented of existing work on the assessment of design performance, performance gaps and ways of closing them, with a particular focus on the key issues in the design of healthcare facilities.  The data collection involved two questionnaire surveys and fourteen interviews. The surveys encompassed Likert scale and open-ended questions that were assigned to designers to explore their awareness and response to important problems encountered in the design of healthcare facilities. This was followed up by in-depth interviews with selected designers. The second survey questioned the satisfaction of healthcare users about aspects of the design of their healthcare environment.  Two situations emerged: (1) where designers are aware of the issues, think they are addressing them, and users are satisfied; and (2) where designers are aware of the issues and believe they are addressing them, but users are nevertheless dissatisfied.  The conclusion is that designers have insufficient information on certain user requirements. Better user information is paramount for better design decision-making and for the quality of healthcare facility design. A conceptual framework and matrices were developed that could raise awareness of this and help in improving design decision-making through improved Post-Occupancy Evaluation.