Positive feedback

Sitting in the study-cum-office of his North London home Bill Bordass admits buildings have always held a certain fascination for him. Working at Cambridge University in the late 60s and early 70s there was no shortage of inspiring new projects. "I found the designs exciting but the results ultimately disappointing," he says. "And thought I'd like to do something about that." After completing his PhD in physical chemistry Bordass joined RMJM, who were designing the Cavendish Laboratory and wanted a scientist to collect briefs on university buildings – a perfect opening. Following a short spell in planning, including environmental impact assessments, Bordass took up responsibility for developing RMJM's building services group. "I got particularly interested in poking around in buildings and found that more rewarding than designing them, which is a more hands off operation," he says.

Ultimately this led him to set up RMJM's building science and energy group, which as well as doing investigation work branched out into research, briefing and environmental design. "I found it a bit frustrating that the feedback I was getting on the work I was doing was not of as much interest to our designers as I thought it should be," says Bordass. This prompted him to set up as an independent consultant in the mid 80s, continuing with troubleshooting work and also branching out into building monitoring, passive design, energy studies and the impact of human factors. "I tried to work more closely with people who knew about the human side: psychologists, social survey experts and ergonomists."

In the mid 90s Bordass became involved in the PROBE studies, which not only looked into but also published how occupied buildings actually performed in the cold light of day. "PROBE brought some of the stuff we had been doing in the previous 10 years out into the open. It also took building investigation techniques a bit further forward in terms of making them quicker and cheaper and more robust, particularly occupant surveys, energy surveys and drawing useful conclusions quickly."

Bordass sees feedback as an essential design tool that everybody wants, but no one wants to pay for. "The Millennium bridge is a very good example of an improperly closed feedback loop," he explains. "The wobbling was an unexpected problem in the engineering community but when Arups whistled down the well it found that several projects around the world had had similar difficulties – though less extreme – but had been too embarrassed to mention it. So an emerging problem which people had not talked about in the right way actually turned into a serious problem."

Changing attitudes about feedback is a gradual process. Clients see it as the industry's fault, taking the view that if it is employing numerous consultants and spending large sums of time and money, then they should get a good building. While industry says clients aren't interested in feedback, won't pay for it and don't get their briefs right. "It's a Catch 22 situation, everybody wants the benefits but how do you break out of the vicious circle that the industry has got into?" says Bordass. "This isn't just the UK, similar things are said the world over. We've therefore set up a charity – the Useable Building Trust – to help people to do things in the public interest."

Part of the solution lies in improving dialogue between clients and design teams and managing expectations. "Many clients now want to specify by performance. However, since the industry by and large goes away as soon as it has built something and doesn't examine how it actually works, to expect instant delivery of a certain performance level is a mirage. First we need to get people to engage with end use performance and to understand what happens." Once designers know what can be realistically achieved, they can start saying they can guarantee performance. "It's an educational thing," says Bordass. "By getting client project managers and design and building teams to want to close the feedback loop and learn from it you can get a much better project for less money. But somebody's got to pay for the learning curve."

Bordass is currently working on the Europrosper project led by ESD looking at how information can be quickly obtained on the energy consumption of occupied buildings in order to issue energy certificates under the European Energy Performance Directive. "The directive could become a good motor for improvement. If achieved energy performance is taken into account properly, it will give everyone more focus on outcomes and will foster more transparency between what people expect and what they get."