A measurement model of occupant well-being for Malaysian office building

Abstract

There has been a shift in the direction of scientific research related to the energy and environmental performance of buildings towards a focus on occupant well-being, as a majority of the population spend most of their time indoors. The Indoor environment within a building has been identified as a major factor influencing occupant well-being because inadequate indoor conditions in buildings could create risks such as adverse health effects, productivity loss and higher rates of absenteeism. Assessing occupant well-being in office buildings has become a growing concern in facilities management practice as occupants represent the highest percentage of operational costs. However, the effects of indoor environment in office buildings can be difficult to quantify due to the wide range of influencing parameters. Globally, multiple tools have been developed to assess the performance of buildings but the existing assessment tools have not comprehensively assessed occupant well-being as a whole by capturing all essential criteria and parameters that are highly related to occupant well-being particularly in the context of office buildings. Therefore, to overcome this issue, this research was aimed to develop a measurement model to assess the performance of indoor environment in the office building on occupant well-being. The three objectives of this research are firstly, to identify the criteria of occupant well-being and associated indoor environment parameters in office buildings. Secondly, to verify the criteria of occupant well-being and associated indoor environment parameters for Malaysian office buildings; and thirdly, to develop a measurement model of occupant well-being for Malaysian office buildings. The first objective was achieved through the synthesis of theories, models and concepts in the literature review. The second was achieved through a semi-structured interview with experts; while the third was achieved using a questionnaire survey involving sixty-five experts in Malaysia through purposive sampling technique. Data were analysed for the second and third objectives using thematic analysis and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis. A measurement model of occupant well-being for Malaysian office buildings was developed in this research. A total of fifteen parameters were identified which were classified into four criteria; occupant comfort, occupant health, occupant adaptation and occupant safety. AHP analysis found that occupants’ health scored the highest priority in computing the measurement model of occupant well-being for Malaysian office building. This study has made a methodological contribution by developing a novel approach to assess occupants’ well-being in Malaysian office buildings, which is useful to help facility managers in prioritising resources and making decisions to improve occupants’ well-being in office buildings.