Reversing the Co-design Process: co-design tools for post occupancy evaluation

Abstract

Visual tools such as probes and design games are used during co-design events to facilitate a common design dialogue. They evoke new ideas and invite users, designers and other stakeholders to explore and rehearse future opportunities. This "toolkit" and working practices is continuously evolving, but the focus is almost always on upcoming design. Based on an experiment this article investigates how co-design tools can be used as a part of a post-occupancy evaluation (POE). As an initial analytical framework, performance studies are used to distinguish and discuss a traditional co-design process as a proto-performance and a POE as a reverse proto-performance.

When you do a POE, you evaluate the performance of an already completed building in relation to the daily users. Unlike a traditional co-design process the POE looks back on the process in order to adjust or redesign the building. 

The article argues that co-design tools can be an instrument to make architects and other stakeholders reflect on the project once again in order to see it from a different perspective.