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Malaysia is still very much lacking behind in green building developments as compared to other countries such as Australia, Japan, and Singapore. Nevertheless, in order to strengthen the development of green building in Malaysia, government has provided and offers several initiatives to the construction key players in implementing green building such as investment tax allowance for the purchase of green technology equipment and income tax exemption on the use of green technology services and system, etc. Despite of all the incentives introduce, the implementation of green building construction still does not boast as expected and still relatively low. Therefore, this study will identify barriers, issues, and challenges faced by construction key players in implementing green building concepts especially related to green building incentives in their project. The opinions and views of related parties in building industry were obtained from structured interviews and questionnaires to key personnel in construction industry to give a clearer picture of the current situation. This study is succeeded in identifying the barriers and challenges, which mainly categorised into financial incentives, fiscal incentives, and structural incentives. The main issues identified are excessive cost of construction, tax exemption is limited and only for qualified person and legislative challenges. Nonetheless, this study also suggests various ways to overcome the barriers in promoting green building concept in Malaysia towards greener environment.

Starting with the notion that each building has an overall life cycle, the paper uses building-based and investment-based life cycles to identify likely decision points for renovations, including sustainability enhancements, and identifies patterns in sustainability decisions.

This real estate insights paper considers how commercial real estate and the built environment it creates, owns and manages impacts the sustainability of urban areas and the globe. By combining building-based and investment-based life cycles, it is possible to develop a unique “sustainability enhancement quotient” for individual buildings and the built environment for an urban area over a given time interval.

Using two life cycles allows the identification and likelihood of sustainability decision points. The same life cycles and decision points are used to consider the likely extent of such renovations. This is in addition to continuous consideration of renovations producing economic benefits in the form of lower operating costs and quick return of capital.

Useful for investment decision-making and policy design and implementation.

This is a useful tool for public and private decision making. It is suggested that the sustainability enhancement quotient may be used to design and implement policies and decisions maximising the likelihood of sustainability enhancement in an urban area's built environment.

Provides a framework for more effective sustainability decisions and public policy. The public-private interplay inherent in every building is emphasised throughout.

Original combination of existing tools.

This paper aims to propose a new format to present the cost of building conservation works which will better reflect the actual cost components and have a higher relevance to building conservation works.

To achieve the study's aim of presenting a new format suitable for building conservation works, a total of 16 conservation projects were selected and work items of the highest frequency were identified and aggregated into the relevant elemental component to formulate a new elemental cost format.

Work items of the highest frequency identified are partitions, doors and ironmongeries, followed by roof finishes and rainwater goods, floor finishes, external walls and windows. In addition to the usual building works, new work items such as scientific analysis, archaeology excavation and temporary roof are also found to be important.

The proposed format has yet to be tested in the local industry, which is necessary to ensure compatibility with industry needs.

This new cost analysis format includes a list of work items that are specific to building conservation works, which may guide the quantity surveyor in preparing a budget/cost estimate with higher accuracy by reducing the risk of omitted work items that are pertinent in building conservation works.

Owing to the lack of cost data information for building conservation works, estimating and controlling the cost in this area of work is very challenging. The proposed new format of elemental cost analysis designed for building conservation works seeks to fill this void by providing a guide in estimating costs for building conservation.

The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Asia and North America has raised much concern from all angles and reflections on nowadays living environment that resulted in public health, especially the high−density urban residential complexes. The so−called community infection at Amoy Gardens apartment in Hong Kong was such a case that is worth further study. However, under the trends of globalization and sustainable development, SARS could be the first alert of unknown outbreak−type fatal epidemic to the coming biomedicine age.

Main findings of the investigation in Amoy Gardens by the Department of Health, Hong Kong, which has been mostly corroborated by World Health Organization (WHO), pointed that environmental factors played a major role in this outbreak. They are, in fact, related to community design, building design and facility management. In this respect, open building theory is conceived of ideas for solution. Three directions are discussed in this study: 1) “territorial depth” at urban tissue level and building level, 2) utility lines at building level and infill level, and 3) space layout by zoning at building level.

In conclusion, design principles for new buildings are suggested; (1) Creating territorial depths in urban tissue and building complex by hierarchical circulations so as to separate people's daily movement and reduce unnecessary human contacts. In addition, the deeper territory expands, the fewer the dwelling units will be preferred. (2) Planning unit space layout with envelope zone following fluid dynamics and solar control physics so as to avoid gaseous infection to people living in the neighborhood among multi−story buildings. (3) Constructing buildings with open−system interfaces between building level and infill level or between infill elements themselves, so that stopgap renovations could easily be done. (4) Separating service lines between building level and infill level. And locating maintenance shafts at accessible public space

Flex−buildings are buildings which are literally designed to change. A flex−building must be able to accept different infills and its users must be able to easily adapt their surroundings.

Flexibility is defined as the capacity of a building to undergo modifications and accept changes of function with limited structural interventions. More than 40% of the activities housed in a flex building can continue to function during modification.

Studies into flex−buildings (commissioned by the Dutch Government) have elicited a number of insights. These are not hard−and−fast conclusions but more in the region of statements and reminders for those involved with flex−buildings.

These studies show that it takes more than civil engineering to successfully realise such buildings. Aspects of use and management are at least as important. Besides, it requires designers who are willing to let go of their design after it is finished. For the result is not a completed ‘architectural’ product but a continually changing object.

Following insights (among others) will be illustrated with built and unbuilt projects in the Netherlands.

• The façade design, for example, figures prominently in designing flexible buildings. It makes special demands on the design’s presentation during the design process, as the building can assume different appearances over time. The double facade is a promising concept that allows for expressive and/or open facades in flexible buildings. It can also help to reduce a building’s energy consumption.

• Also by deliberately incorporating excessive space and construction a building has the necessary leeway to accommodate future developments. A building’s flexibility is enhanced by oversize in structure as well as space.

• A big multi−use building in Rotterdam (H. A. Maaskant / W. van Tijen (1951)) and recent projects of RUIMTELAB are presented as case−studies. These are an inspiration for architects and planners looking for design tools to help achieve an open architecture.

This paper deals with the materials flow to the building site and how to make it meet the requirements of right quality, quantity, time and place. It offers a way to systematically map materials flow to the building site and send the right information to the supplier in order to get the right materials to the building site.

The purpose of this paper is to present a case of an office building in England and show how the technology in energy efficiency in building will contribute to energy conservation.

The paper presents a case of an office building. The building is then modelled and analysed using IES Virtual Environment VE to estimate the Target Emissions Rate (TER) and the Building Emissions Rate (BER) to see how the building could satisfy Part L of the Building Regulations.

The building in case use various sustainable solutions such as limiting the heat loss and gain through the fabric, ventilation system with a good high heat recovery system, increasing the availability of daylight and good lighting control system. The office building in the case study is in full compliance with Part L of the Building Regulations. The sustainable technology in the building will assist the compliance with Part L of the Building Regulations.

This is a single case study building; more case studies for buildings of this nature are required.

The paper demonstrates various feasible solutions of sustainable technology in buildings that might help comply with the regulation.

The case study building is a real case taken directly from one of the author's projects when he was working as a building services engineer. This case study building and its sustainable features have not been presented before in an academic journal.

Intelligent building (IB) is the future of our building industry. All new commercial buildings and probably luxurious domestic buildings are designed with a common goal – to become intelligent buildings. However, the official definition of IB has not yet been standardised around the world. In the USA, an IB is categorised by four basic elements, namely building structure, building systems, building services and building management. In Europe, the emphasis is on information technology and the genuine need of the user. In Singapore and China, it appears that the term “automation” has been dominating with a great emphasis on high technology. It is our view that a proper definition of IB should be based on users’ needs instead of the image of the building itself. We have therefore developed a new method for defining and specifying IBs. The requirements of users are categorised into eight key modules. All building systems and features are summarised in terms of tens of elements. Selected elements are assigned to a particular key area, i.e. module. Each type of building is then allocated certain key areas for detailed design. Once the areas have been chosen, the elements will automatically be assigned for the consultants to carry out detailed design works. This concept of definition has both advantages of comprehensiveness and flexibility, hoping that it will be useful for the developments of IBs not merely in Asia but also the whole world.

This paper describes a new proactive approach for facility managers to assess and manage complaints of “sick buildings”.

The assessment of the “sick building” syndrome problem is multifaceted and should include both objective data such as those collected and analyzed by industrial hygienists, and subjective data such as occupant perception measurements, usually gathered by surveys. The data for this research, both objective and subjective, were provided on a wide variety of office buildings and were analyzed using an artificial neural‐network based model.

Current literature on the subject suggests that the cause of poor indoor environments involves many variables interacting in an unlimited number of combinations. Using a blended definition of a narrowly defined “sick building”, a framework for a decision‐making support system for facility managers is provided.

The data collection was limited to Southeastern US commercial office buildings, but the model has global applicability.

Recommendations are presented to help facility managers better understand the complex nature of the indoor environment based on this research.

This research and data analysis can be tailored to and is applicable to any building type.

Labour usage represents one of the critical elements in the Malaysia construction industry due to severe shortage of local workers. This paper aims to present a construction performance comparison between conventional building systems and industrialised building systems (IBS).

Data were obtained from 100 residential projects through a questionnaire survey in 2005. A total of 100 respondents participated in this study.

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results indicated that the actual labour productivity comparison between conventional building system and IBS was significantly different. Further, the comparison of crew size indicated that the conventional building system of 22 workers was significantly different from the IBS of 18 workers. Similarly, the cycle time of 17 days per house for conventional building system was found to be significantly different from the IBS of four days. However, the conventional building system was found to be insignificantly different from the IBS in term of structural construction cost.

The results acquired from this study could be used by project planners for estimating labour input, control costs and project scheduling. Additionally, they could be used to determine the most appropriate structural building system for executing a construction project at the conceptual stage.