Building Performance Analysis

3Needs, Functions and Requirements

The previous chapter discussed the context of building performance in terms of life cycle, stakeholders, systems and the many challenges that drive the interest in performance. This chapter returns to the definition of building performance as a concept that expresses how well a building performs a task or function and explores these tasks and functions and their definition in further depth. This approach applies to the engineering, process and aesthetic views of performance.

Definition of stakeholder needs and requirements is an important activity at the very start of system design and development. It typically responds to a high‐level problem or opportunity, which initiates the actual design and development process, such as a client wanting to invest in a new development or needing new facilities. The activity includes identification of the stakeholders, elicitation of stakeholder needs, identification of the operational scenarios that the system is likely to encounter, a translation of the stakeholder needs into requirements and formal description and management of the requirements (INCOSE, 2015: 52–57). Typically capturing stakeholder needs is not a trivial matter, as stakeholders may have only a generic idea of what they want. Needs of different stakeholders may conflict, and in many cases significant analysis is required to get the full list of needs. Requirements are a refinement of the needs that take into account constraints on potential ...