About Soft Landings

Soft Landings helps to solve the performance gap between design intentions and operational outcomes. This performance gap can emerge at any stage in a project:

• at inception and briefing, where ambitions and requirements are set but may not be informed by experience and feedback from other projects
• at design, where specific performance targets are set and regulatory compliance achieved, but those targets are neither re-visited nor reality-checked during detailed design
• during construction, where budget shortfalls may compromise the best of intentions, and variations are made to the building and its technical systems that change how the building will be used
• during handover, when commissioning and end-user training may be rushed or abandoned to meet deadlines
• during initial occupation, where not enough support is available to occupants and the managers to ensure the building is set up for the long-term.

Soft Landings provides a step-by-step process for clients and their project teams to follow in order to avoid these pitfalls and deliver a better-performing product. It aims to create virtuous circles for all. No matter whether your project is attempting to achieve exemplary environmental standards, or is a simple extension or retrofit of an existing building, the Soft Landings culture can be applied to ensure outcomes match the client’s intentions.

BSRIA’s stated mission is “making buildings better”. Sometimes the industry likes to call them “green” buildings or “intelligent” buildings. This usually equates to a design intention, not the as-built reality. The reality is that irrespective of what label is used to define a building, what matters is how it performs in use, in energy terms and in business terms.

The Soft Landings approach is designed to give clients and their project teams a process to follow that will lead to a better chance of success. It is a change of culture as much as it is a change of process. Everyone involved has to share the ambition, and share roles and responsibilities, to make buildings tread more lightly on the earth and provide the right internal environment to foster occupant wellbeing and productivity.