Designing sustainable architecture and zero carbon buildings means little if this is only achieved on paper and when these standards are not met once the spaces are handed over to the users. Hence in reality, once your project is built you need to go back to check to see if it works as you designed, once people have started using the spaces. It is a must to understand, and make sure that the spaces and systems all perform as intended, and that people are satisfied. You can then fix things that do not work, and learn from this for future designs. Unless you are working on a live project, as a student your designs are not usually realised so you cannot go back and check whether it works. But you should create a ‘performance risk plan’ as part of your design project where you map out the ‘risk areas’ of your project.

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