ABSTRACT
In this paper we explore how an anthropological approach to Post Occupancy Evaluation can be used as a way to better understand and work with wellbeing in buildings. Most current building evaluation approaches view buildings and users as separate and stabile entities and focus on the performance of the buildings. We propose a different perspective on POE that takes sociomaterial practices as a starting point and shifts the primary focus from benchmark to change. This approach views the relationship between people and environments as dynamic and entangled and provides detailed, contextual knowledge that takes the complexity of everyday life as a premise to be dealt with, instead of trying to reduce it. Understanding architecture as ongoing, performative, and situated, there are no absolute truths to be uncovered but potentials to intervene and to reimagine existing configurations to support wellbeing.
