Criteria for occupant well-being: a qualitative study of Malaysian office buildings

Abstract

The conditions of a building's indoor environment can greatly influence occupant well-being. This influence can be difficult to quantify because of the wide range of parameters. This qualitative study reviews over 200 pieces of literature on both the indoor environment and occupant well-being and attempts to identify the indoor environment criteria and parameters associated with occupant well-being in an office building context. Through semistructured interviews with experts, this paper explored the applicability of the identified indoor environment parameters on occupant well-being in Malaysian office buildings. Thematic analysis assisted by NVivo software was applied to the empirical data, and this resulted in the identification of 15 parameters and classified four criteria for occupant well-being: occupant comfort, occupant health, occupant adaptation, and occupant safety. The findings of this study contribute to the literature a novel conceptual model for evaluating occupant well-being in office buildings, as applied to the case of Malaysian office buildings.