# Unboxing Buildings: Engaging with Occupants during Design, Testing and Use
## 3 Three Examples from Interdisciplinary Norwegian Building Research
### The School and the Evaluation of Electrochromatic Glass  
The school, which is located in Trondheim, Norway, has space for 1020 pupils, is approximately 30,000 m\({}^{2}\) in area, and opened in 2018. It is also a zero-emission building and one of the first in Norway. As such the school is a test arena for advanced building systems. This includes electrochromic glass (EG), sun shading technology that is integrated in the insulated glazing unit of a window. EG has a number of useful qualities. It has no moveable parts but by imposing an electrical current, the solar heat gain coefficient and visible light transmittance can be controlled. Sun shading is vital for the indoor climate and the comfort of occupants. Traditional sun shading blocks the view from a window, but an exterior view is still available when EG is activated, and windows are darkened. EG is integrated in the glazing unit and no externally mounted sun shading is in theory required. It has no moveable parts, and this implies less maintenance. In addition, any repairs that are needed can be done from inside the building. Testing the EG in the school provides an opportunity to learn about how the system functions in Scandinavian climate and daylight conditions. It can also tell us how the system functions in school buildings and if it meets the requirements of the occupants associated with this building type. The EG was evaluated in 2019. Daylight measurements were carried out by measuring the daylight factor in two classrooms and two offices. According to the Norwegian Building Code TEK\(-\)17 the daylight factor should be larger than 2% in these types of rooms. Four rooms were chosen for the daylight measurement on the 3 rd and 4 th floors. A user evaluation was also carried out that included two groups of occupants (technical management and teaching and administration staff) [25]. The evaluation was organized by the building owner and the executing building contractor. The meta-analysis focuses on the occupant evaluation and why avoiding black boxes can be useful during the testing and early use phases. The evaluation, in which the authors had a leading role, tells the story of low daylight measurements, system failure, and windows that have never worked, or only work partially, and require repairs by an expert who is flown in from abroad. The evaluation did not recommend that EG should be used in rooms intended for educational purposes [25]. During the re-analysis of the occupant evaluation, we have uncovered three factors associated with design and development, where the design and testing processes could have been strengthened by offering occupants the opportunity to state their requirements and discuss the functionality of the EG. (1) Interviews with teaching and management staff point to a mismatch between the everyday requirements of occupants in the school and the EG. Slow response time and malfunctions meant that there was often glare on computer screens. In addition, solar heat gains meant indoor temperatures were greater than with external or internal sun shading. A representative from the teaching staff told us,  
\"It (EG) might have worked in a building with regular businesses. It's perhaps more relevant in offices than schools. A school does not just need sun shading. Rooms need darkness for presentations. PC use and power point presentations are common in schools today and sun shading with a 20-min response time is too slow. We have to go to classrooms and turn it on before class starts.\"  
(2) The EG is not mounted on all facades or on all floors of the school. A representative from the teaching staff wondered about the design process, how was the system chosen and how the design team made decisions about where the EG was to be located, \"How was it determined where EG is located? It is not consistent. Some rooms have partly EG and partly no sun protection.\" To occupants, the design and decision-making process seems random.