POESY: A Post-Occupancy Evaluation Tool
LEGOFIT employs the POESY tool to bridge the gap between theoretical predictions and actual user experience.
We spend about 90% of our time indoors, yet many of the buildings we occupy fall short of our expectations for comfort. In recent years, significant efforts have been made to improve the environmental performance of buildings, with certifications such as LEED and BREEAM driving this transformation. More recently, new standards have appeared like WELL building standard and Fitwel focusing on occupant health and well-being, introducing numerous criteria to enhance thermal, acoustic, and visual comfort, among other aspects. The way occupants experience and feel inside a building has become a central concern. Beyond technical performance and certifications, understanding users experience is essential to creating spaces that truly meet their needs and requirements.
The role of the post-occupancy evaluation
As Preiser suggests, Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) can be defined as the act of evaluating buildings in a systematic and rigorous manner after they have been built and occupied for some time. The main objective of this evaluation is to assess occupants’ perceived comfort. Any shortcomings identified can then be analyzed to develop solutions that meet occupants’ needs and improve the global sastifaction. In practice, one of the main challenges of post-occupancy evaluation lies in managing multiple and heterogeneous data sources (e.g. air quality measurements and occupant surveys) which can make the analysis complex and time-consuming.
POESY: A Post-Occupancy Evaluation Tool
By integrating BIM models, sensor data, and occupant comfort survey, POESY (Post-Occupancy Evaluation SYstem) streamlines this process, making data collection and analysis more efficient and accessible. This tool is developed by the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology and it consists in a web application intended to support Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE), enabling organizations to gather and analyze occupants’ feedback during a building’s operational phase. This approach helps facility managers identify critical aspects of building performance and improve occupants experience.
With POESY, you can:
- Run feedback campaigns to capture occupants’ perceived comfort within spaces (e.g., thermal comfort, lighting, acoustics).
- Combine qualitative feedback with sensor data (temperature, humidity) for a holistic view of the occupant experience inside the building.
- Leverage BIM integration to link post-occupancy evaluations with building models, visualize aggregated results, and plan future improvements.
- By merging human insights with real-time data, POESY empowers informed decisions for better, more sustainable and comfortable buildings.
POESY supports the objectives of the European Commission’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) and the Renovation Wave strategy, which aim to achieve a highly energy-efficient and decarbonized building stock by 2050. By integrating occupant feedback with sensor data and BIM, POESY contributes to smarter renovation decisions, fostering nearly-zero and positive energy buildings while enhancing comfort and sustainability. This approach is also fully in line with EU efforts to promote smart readiness and improve energy performance across Europe.
What’s Next?
The LEGOFIT team will deploy POESY within pilot projects to support the analysis of perceived comfort before and after renovation activities.
Discover how occupant’s experience can be improved with POESY—updates coming soon!
