MEASURES AND INDICATORS OF

PERFORMANCE
• PERFORMANCE MEASURES AND PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
The problem of assessing the worthwhileness of building projects from an
economic point of view is equivalent to that of selecting an appropriate
measure of economic performance and then estimating its value for the
project under scrutiny. The actual performance of a building can ascertained
only after completion.
During the design and planning phase, we need to establish reasonably
accurate estimates of the eventual actual performance. Ideally, we should
take pains to make such an estimate every time we develop a new,
significantly different design solution. Each estimate then guides further
design decisions.
 Experience tells us that if the ratio between the size of the areas in the
floor plan that can accommodate tenant activities (that are rentable) and
those that serve circulation, storage, restrooms and other service areas- or,
put differently, between the rental areas and overall floor area of the building
is high, then the building is likely to have an acceptable initial cost and to
present a favourable picture of rental income. It is the visual relationship
between these areas that can be seen by experienced designers and that is
used to guide design in an intuitive way. This is the common net-to-gross
ratio or the efficiency ratio.
 A measure of performance is defined as a variable that can be measured
and that tells the designer of any object or solution for a problem how will the
solution serves its purpose or solves the problem. A measure of economic
performance for a building is a variable that measures how will the building
meets the economic objectives and concerns of the client, owner or user.
A performance indicator is a measure that merely indicates probable
performance as it may be measured by a real performance variable. An
indicator describes or measures some feature that is directly or indirectly
responsible for the actual, eventual performance of a solution.
• Performance Indicators in Regulations
There is another important reason for being concerned with performance
indicators because they are directly linked with design decisions, they often
are used in regulations of various kinds, to control development and building
design. Such regulations then are expressed as constraints placed either on
design variables directly or on intermediate variables that also serve as
performance indicators. Examples are density indicators, such as the floor
area ratio or the number of dwelling units per unit of site area.
• PERFORMANCE INDICATORS AT DIFFERENT LEVELS OF
SCALE – EXAMPLES
Performance indicators for urban design
At the level of urban design the significant decisions involve the overall
development pattern, the street network, zoning, allocation of building types
in relation to street system, open space and massing considerations. For
housing developments, the size of individual sites and choices between
different development types, such as detached, semi detached, duplex, row
house, walkup, slab block, point block and so on, are examples of the kind
of considerations that would be appropriate at this level.
• Site Development
At the level of site development, the access pattern positioning of buildings relative
to site borders, setbacks, and the massing are the important decisions. The
performance indicators that guide these decisions still are mainly density – related,
but the land units in the denominator now do not include the areas of street and other
public amenities. Dwelling units per acre is an important density measure in housing.
For housing and other building types, the floor area ratio also called the plot ratio or
floor space index(units of floor area per unit of site area) is the most significant
measure. Coverage, the ratio of the building foot print to the total site area, and the
open space index, the ratio of open space to total site, and the no. of units of open
space per resident, are examples of other density – related indicators at this level.