Developing an Evaluation Protocol for the Toronto Public Library (TPL) System Through the Application of a Building Performance Evaluation (BPE) of a Branch Library to Inform its Retrofit Strategy

Abstract

Buildings play a significant role in our economy and society. Substantial capital is invested in buildings, and they are the locales where a large portion (e.g., work, cultural, religious, social and personal activities) of our lives are conducted. Despite the significant monetary and temporal investments in buildings, building performance evaluations (BPEs) are not standard practice. From BPEs that have been conducted, important findings have been identified. Significant gaps frequently exist between the design intent of buildings and their measured performance (e.g., energy and water consumption) and user satisfaction (e.g., thermal comfort, lighting, noise). Environmental (e.g., resource consumption) and economic drivers (e.g., productivity, operational costs) are spurring the growth of BPEs. A BPE was conducted of the Weston Public Library (WPL) with the intent of informing a retrofit strategy and developing a protocol for conducting BPEs in the Toronto Public Library (TPL) system.