Nur Farhana Azmi

• BSc Building Surveying
• Senior Lecturer at University of Malaya

Due to the characteristics of environmental protection, energy saving, low cost and small size, electric bicycles are the most popular means of transportation in China. In recent years, several fatal electric bicycle fires have occurred, causing numerous casualties in old residential buildings. This paper uses numerical assessment tools to examine...

Evacuation is a critical procedure for safeguarding individuals during a fire incident within a healthcare facility. Assessing the risk associated with the evacuation process is instrumental in enhancing emergency decision-making and developing contingency strategies. Evacuation, a dynamic process, poses challenges in accurate risk evaluation using...

Purpose This research paper aims to provide recommendations for enhancing the service quality of coworking spaces in Malaysia through effective workplace management. This study emphasizes the importance of avoiding over-promising and under-delivering, prioritizing cleanliness, functionality and customer satisfaction over profit to prevent user attr...

The study’s primary objective is to investigate stakeholders’ roles in paving safer walks to school for children in Malaysia using Net-Maps. Net-Map, a systematic and interactive participatory technique, is employed to visualize and analyse complex social networks, aiding in the identification of key stakeholders and influential individuals. By lev...

Accurate digital twins are crucial in improving facility management. However, facility owners often encounter inaccurate digital twins due to incorrect as-built Building Information Modeling (BIM) models. By understanding the attributes of correct as-built BIM models, it is possible to reduce the production of inaccurate digital twins. This study a...

Purpose Digital twin (DT) and building information modeling (BIM) are interconnected in some ways. However, there has been some misconception about how DT differs from BIM. As a result, industry professionals reject DT even in BIM-based construction projects due to reluctance to innovate. Furthermore, researchers have repeatedly developed tools and...

The potential of public parks being able to promote mental and physical health of the public is widely discussed in recent years. However, the report for public park issues becomes a norm too. One of the issues being debated is the maintenance drawback in Malaysian public parks, implicating underutilisation of the parks. To address the issue, this...

Public parks play a significant role in the promotion of human well-being, nature protection and as a medium for ecosystem regeneration. Nonetheless, the provision and management of facilities in Malaysia’s public parks has been inconsistently and inadequately administered due to budgetary constraints. To optimise a limited budget whilst safeguardi...

Several studies have shown that plants with a variety of performance categories can improve indoor air quality (IAQ). In addition, it has positive impacts on occupants’ concentration ability, work efficiency, job satisfaction, mental health, stress reduction, and sense of well-being. However, there is few research that have focused on the impact of...

Green building gains its popularity by having various benefits like optimising energy consumption, promoting long-term cost savings, and addressing global climate change. Inevitably, inappropriate operation and maintenance practice becomes a barrier in sustaining green buildings. Thus, there is an urgent need to recommend a sound operation and main...

Purpose Malaysia’s building regulation is mainly based on the Uniform Building By-Laws (UBBL) 1984 which provides guidelines on the procedures for building plans approval and other means of development control. However, the application of these by-laws varies between local authorities, as they are gazetted by different state governments. The formul...

Total productive maintenance (TPM) can be beneficial to be applied in green building. Successful TPM application requires total participation of the occupants in green building. However, lack of occupant awareness and involvement are the barriers of TPM application in green building. Thus, this paper aims to examine the aspects of occupant awarenes...

Regardless of their size, every town, city, or more generally each place, has its own beautiful, unique and distinct characteristics. However, only few studies have provided valuable information on exceptional and unique features that can contribute to the distinctiveness and identity of small-scale towns. It is important to identify these cultural...

Inclusivity and equality in the context of women's mobility has recently gained attention. This is due to the increased demands of women travelling with either private vehicles or public transportation. Inclusivity and equality planning is more than just providing women's coaches, special pregnant women seats, and women-only lines in public transpo...

Heritage building is a tangible part of cultural heritage, a physical artefact of significant value from past generations that need to be maintained and preserved for the benefit of future generations. This paper investigates the importance and relevance of triple-bottom line elements of sustainable development (social, economic and environment) in...

This study examined the evacuation strategies employed in high-rise buildings as well as determined factors influencing decision making in employing evacuation strategies in four selected high-rise buildings in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Through a case study evaluation involving interviews with facility/building managers, walk through observations of...

Purpose Built heritage constitutes the uniqueness and identity of a place. While being overlooked in existing research, built heritage in small towns is increasingly threatened by dilapidation, exhaustion and disappearance. Therefore, this study aims to examine the challenges in protecting the unique features and identity of small towns with regard...

Prior studies have identified that enhancing a city’s walkability could be helpful in revitalizing an old, decayed or blighted downtown. While the benefits of walking are obvious and have been widely explored especially in terms of health and environment, this paper explores the potential of Machinoeki as a push factor in changing the mindset of a...

Transit stations are generally well known as nodes of spaces where percentage of people walking are relatively high. The issue is do more planning is actually given to create walkability. Creating walking led transit stations involves planning of walking distance, providing facilities like pathways, toilets, seating and lighting. On the other hand,...

The sustainability of heritage town has been a huge controversial issue. Many local authorities struggle to sustain heritage buildings due to lack of community participation although they have adequate funding. As a result, many guidelines or even restrictions to sustain those building meets a dead end. Most heritage building owners also face issue...

T he performance of an employee is related to productivity. Generally, it is acknowledged that the physical elements of workplace can influence satisfaction and implicate productivity. Workplace is the fundamental requirement that allows employee to carry out their work in comfortable conditions. A comfortable workplace provides healthy, liveable a...

The provision of affordable and quality housing has been a major focus of the Malaysian government in ensuring the overall well-being of households, especially for the B40 groups. Despite efforts by the government many of these buildings are overcrowded, and thus are inimical to people's health and wellbeing. Therefore, this study attempts to ident...

Purpose Refurbishment is inherently more sustainable than building new. However, planned and actual costs of refurbishment projects are bound to vary due to the complex nature of most such projects. This can affect the performance of refurbishment work. The purpose of this paper is to examine factors responsible for elemental cost variations betwee...

Purpose Providing quality low-cost high-rise residential housing for poor households remains a major concern worldwide and especially in Malaysia. Despite government effort to maintain the quality of the housing through the Housing Maintenance Program and 1Malaysia Maintenance Fund Program (TP1M), the maintenance industry is still faced with seriou...

The quality of cultural resources in influencing the distinctiveness of a place is rooted in its tangible and intangible features or collectively known as character-defining elements. While it is undeniable that a place is noticeable and regarded as meaningful due to its cultural heritage values, it is important to know where these significances li...

The most widespread building type of shophouses characterizes the historic core of Malaysia's towns. Different façade treatment, colours, height and width give a unique character to the buildings and hence contribute to the richness and distinctiveness of places as a whole. The combination of different types of uses or activities within the shophou...

This paper focuses on the importance of occupant satisfaction with indoor environmental quality in buildings as well as the effect of indoor environmental quality towards occupants’ satisfaction. This research applied post-occupancy evaluation as a method to indicate the building occupants’ needs, their satisfaction and comfort level. The research...

In current era, the nature of business is ever-changing where communication and interaction between office workers are encouraged as the scope of work for office is expanding. Traditional offices with identical cubicles separated with panels are ineffective because not all workers are in the same activity mode at the same time. Providing and mainta...

Built heritage constitute the very individuality of places hence to its identity. However, the built heritage in a small-scale town is nowadays subject to the triple threat of dilapidation, exhaustion and disappearance. Therefore, this paper attempts to examine the building regulations, guidelines and policies with regard to sustaining the unique f...

Built heritage of immense architectural, historical and cultural values constitute as one of the most dominant characteristics that contribute significantly to the identity of places. However, the built heritage in smaller towns and cities in Malaysia have been relatively neglected and overlooked. In addition to the role in identity development of...

Each place possesses characteristics that confer on it a sense of place and identity through the meanings and values that they provide. The role of the physical built environment in place and identity development has not received adequate attention in built environment literature. This paper attempts to identify the unique and exceptional character...