Post-occupancy evidence: Turning researcher feedback into facility strategy

Modern research buildings can deliver everything they promise on opening day and still constrain science through invisible operational pressures. Barbara Manley-Smith profiles Augusta University's post-occupancy study of a newly built, light-filled research facility, drawing on survey responses from faculty, staff, postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates. She details what the modern environment achieved in collaboration, visibility, and shared-resource use, and pinpoints recurring constraints around lab storage, bench and wall space, equipment support, lab-office adjacency, environmental comfort, odors, and maintenance reliability. She maps how post-occupancy findings directly shape planning, infrastructure, and operations decisions for next-generation research facilities.