Cooperative Research for High Performance Buildings

This paper represents two research projects with the aim to define what “High Performance buildings” should be and the steps to reach the highest goal, the user satisfaction and contentment with the building. The quality optimization of buildings demands the consideration of the principles of life cycle assessment (LCA and LCC) and occupant satisfaction, particularly with the aim to create sustainable buildings and high comfort standards. However, these high expectations require expertise to an extent which cannot be covered by an institution or research unit by its own. This paper features the basic principles, the results and findings of two completed government funded research projects. These achievements emerged from a cooperation of several Austrian Universities of Applied Sciences. The focus of the first research project LQG (life cycle improvement of the building quality) is on developing, analyzing and evaluating methods to assess planning decisions with their consequences on the life time of a building while normally, investment costs often serve as the only basis for decision making. Two main outputs of the project are firstly the creation of a comprehensive guideline on sustainable buildings (=Database of Quality) and secondly a common database of both economical and ecological building life cycle data. The goal of the second research project MOFNUG (Modular questionnaire for the user satisfaction in buildings) is to determine the whole spectrum of user compliance in buildings by implementing different work packages, ranging from scientific research over purchasing of measurement tools to the improvement and optimization of the questionnaire, which is one of the main topics of the research group at the FH Wels. The online accessibility of the project’s results and tools is important in terms of the usability in research and teaching.