Valutare la qualità percepita. Uno studio pilota per gli hospice Evaluation of perceived quality. Hospice: a pilot study

Among the stages characterizing a building process, management is gaining the increasingly significant role that it is entitled to: equally significant is its assessment as this can bring to light eventual design limitations and possible implementation insufficiencies. Focusing attention on the operating stage in the lifespan of a building means assessing how well it maintains its performance standards over time, its degree of efficiency evaluated in terms of construction and management costs ratio, its subsequent effectiveness evaluated in terms of the quality of services rendered. Therefore efficiency and effectiveness become the keys through which one can appreciate the quality of the commodity produced. One of the most accredited assessment methods is called Post-Occupancy Evaluation. The POE method varies according to the intended use of the building, its consequent complexities, the factors to be surveyed and the users involved. Particular attention must be paid to buildings that were designed to perform complex social-healthcare activities, as in the case of hospices. In this case, effectiveness clearly prevails over efficiency since the survey involves verifying how a “vulnerable” corpus of users (made up of patients, caregivers and staff) may benefit from the use of facilities possessing comfort requisites complying with their own specific psychological needs. The said assessment, which is a particularly important and delicate one, takes on an even more meaningful dimension when it is conducted by “listening” to these users in the first person. These findings are undoubtedly valuable in arousing considerations on design choices, in guaranteeing improved architectural quality both in the case of new buildings or those undergoing redevelopment operations. The present book focuses on these issues, providing some considerations, tools and indicators that are the result of research funded by “Sapienza” University of Rome and conducted by an interdisciplinary team of professors from the faculties of Architecture and Environmental Psychology.