Environmentally- sustainable affordable design elements in housing : (A case Stydy on middle-income people in the context of Malaysia)

Abstract

Hot humid tropical conditions in Malaysia create high temperature and humidity as well as low air flow which affect human comfort especially in residential buildings. Recently, the Malaysian government focused on delivering more number of affordable public and private housing units to the middle-income population. With the global awareness on sustainability, the purpose of this study was to investigate whether environmentally-sustainable design elements in housing design can be integrated within the affordable range of this target group. The research followed the basic three methodological steps namely data collection, data analysis and data interpretation. Secondary data was collected from literature in order to identify all possible sustainable design elements related to the context including both passive and active elements. Seventeen passive and two active elements were identified. After that, they were put together and were divided into two different categories. The first category included those which were within the designers’ control and were expected to be integrated within the design process with affordability entrusted with the designers. The second category included those which remain to be within this targeted owners’ decision to choose from, depending on their affordability. From analysis, fifteen passive elements were drawn into the first category, and two passive and two active elements were included in the second category. Afterwards, a market study which included interviews with contractors and manufacturers, were conducted in order to determine the market price of each of these elements. A five-point Likert-scale questionnaire survey was conducted through conditional sampling (sample size: twenty) in order to test opinions of the target group on these four elements regarding affordability. It was found that only one of them namely solar water heating system was within their affordable range. Totally, sixteen elements were found to be affordable by this target group. Qualitative interpretation was drawn with the help of open ended interviews with selected owners in order to find out the reasons. Finally, some recommendations were made which could help improve the environmental sustainability of the affordable housing targeted to middle income people in Malaysia.