A Review on Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) Attributes for Malaysian Post occupancy Evaluation (POE) in Green Office Building

Abstract

Green buildings represent sustainable design and construction that require a holistic interaction between all components of a building that are environmentally responsible throughout a building’s life cycle from the beginning until the completion. A green building should deliver its occupants with a comfortable indoor environment that will satisfy their comfort needs and enhance the productivity while working in the building. Among the numerous efforts in the emerging green building is the establishment of green building certification systems worldwide that is considered as one of the most prominent and systematic approaches to the continuous effort in promoting outdoor and indoor environmental sustainability. The benefits of these tools are they can guide the development of construction industry towards its best practice and improve the quality of building for tenants and occupants. Previous literature revealed that Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) assessment in green rating standards such as the LEED United State and BREEAM United Kingdom does play a significant role in the certification process of green building. Thus, the IEQ comprises several main aspects such as temperatures, humidity, noise, lighting, space design, structural systems and last but not least the building envelope design. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to review the aspects of IEQ in Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) study previously conducted by researchers around the world. The paper will focus on the development of IEQ assessment attributes that can be used in POE for an office building in a hot and humid climate. It will also provide an emphasis on the relationship between IEQ and Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) in determining post occupant’s satisfaction. It is hoped that these research findings will bring benefit to green certification bodies in Malaysia such as the Green Building Index (GBI) and GreenRE Malaysia in evaluating office building in post-occupancy stage.