User Centered Design Approach And Built Environment Sustainability.

Abstract

In the past few decades, issues pertaining to Built Environment Sustainability (BES) has attracted much attention in form of scholarly debates and researches. User Centered Design Approach (UCD) has become one amongst many other approaches or strategies being advocated by researchers to ensure built environment sustainability. This is because, firstly, researches have established the users as central in the planning, design, construction and management of any built environment. Secondly, from the stand point of the users, performance evaluation of built spaces are conducted, of which the outcomes have always shown the actual to be far from the expected in meeting the needs and expectations of would-be-users. This is probably attributed to outright exclusion and/or “poor understanding” of the users by the Architect or Designer and other parties involved in the design and construction processes. The paper attempts an explorative study of the dynamic role and place of users, usefulness and usability concepts within the built environment. The paper emphasised on the need for more user engagement in the design process and addresses the challenges and opportunities of a User Centered Design (UCD) approach towards attaining Built Environment Sustainability (BES). Keywords: User centered design, Performance Evaluation, Built environment sustainability, User engagement.