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In recent years certain circumstances occurring in the historic settlements of Malaysia have been having an adverse influence on some of their particular attributes. Such attributes give the historic settlements their special character and are of significant cultural and historic importance, perhaps even irreplaceable. Their loss is a matter of serious consequence. The major objective of the study is to develop a better understanding of the processes and repercussions of change in the historic settlements by studying them in some detail and to put forward suggestions for the improvement of the present planning process. To achieve the aim the special attributes of the historic settlements were identified. They were examined in a numbers of historic settlements of Kuala Selangor, Selangor in order to determine their past and present characteristics and the nature of the effects to which they have been subject. The role of the planning process in anticipating and reacting to such changes was examined. A broad range of information was collected from various sources and through a field survey carried out in the selected settlement. The collected information was analysed with particular regard to the special attributes. It became apparent that the special attributes of the historic settlement are being adversely affected to varying extents because of the changes occurring. The legislation procedures though found to be fragmented, however, appear to be appropriate protection of the identified special attributes. It is also evident that the planning policies as contained in the Structure Plans/Local Plans have generally proved unsuccessful in arresting the present trends. In the long term it may be possible to reduce the scale of the adverse effects, though this is likely to take a fairly considerable period of time, significant resources and a substantial commitment to certain managerial measures and other planning requirements. Detailed conclusions have been arrived at and specific suggestions are made for the formulation of guidelines to improve the planning process in Malaysia with regard to its operation in the historic settlements.

The study focussed on exploring the implications of telecommuting on commute travel in Kuala Lumpur City Centre. In most city centres, commute travel often contributes to the peak hour traffic congestion. It was identified that major roads leading to Kuala Lumpur city centre during peak hours are over-saturated. Centralised business activities and high dependency on private vehicles are among the main factors. Based on the review of the literature, telecommuting is able to provide a substitute for the commute travel and to mitigate the traffic congestion if practiced at a full scale. Telecommuting allows employees work from home or from a designated teleworking centre instead of commuting into a central office. The primary survey revealed the perceptions of employees on travel characteristics, preference to telecommuting and several factors regarding the adoption of telecommuting. Method of analysis used was descriptive analysis such as frequency distribution, crosstabulation, mean and statistical testing such as chi-square, correlation and Friedman. As expected, driving alone to the workplace was the most preferred mode of transport (48%). It was also revealed that more than half of the respondents felt stressed while commuting to work (54%). Accordingly, traffic congestion was reported as the main cause. The preference to practice telecommuting revealed that 50% of the respondents have shown a strong preference. Three main motivators towards the inclination of practicing telecommuting were “ability to reduce the stress of travelling to work”, “having more time to spend with the family” and “increased job satisfaction.” On the other hand, the three main obstacles were “lack of social interaction with other colleagues”, “increased home utility bills” and “lack of resources to accomplish work task remotely”. The estimation on the reduction of commute trips by private vehicles revealed that a reduction of 0.20 million (0.28%) in 2005, 0.67 million (0.79%) in 2010 and 1.91 million (2.1%) in 2015 will be achieved for the existing case with telecommuting frequency of one day per week. The estimated savings in VKMT for the existing case with one telecommuting day per week was projected to be approximately 5.3 million km (0.28%) in 2005, 17.45 million km (0.79%) in 2010, and 49.60 million km in 2015 (2.09%). The reduction in commute trips and savings in VKMT would subsequently increase as the frequency of telecommuting days increased. Hence, a maximum reduction in commute trips and savings in VKMT would possibly be achieved with maximum practice of telecommuting.

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In our natural environment, there is an abundance of daylight. Before the invention of electric lighting, it was a primary source of interior illuminance. However, in today’s office buildings, daylight is being underutilized and dependency on artificial lighting is very common. Daylight use can be an energy saving feature of a building by reducing demand for electric lighting. It is very difficult to provide adequate amount of daylight all through a side lit space. Therefore, the knowledge regarding depth of its penetration is important for its proper utilization. This requires detailed daylight analysis. Standard skies are a very important part of this analysis. Recently, sets of fifteen skies have been adopted by the CIE (Commission Internationale de L’eclairage) as standards for the entire globe. These have not yet been incorporated into daylight simulation software. In order to incorporate these standard skies, the study has analysed the depth of daylight and permanent supplementary artificial lighting for interiors (PSALI) in high-rise office under hot-humid climate of Peninsular Malaysia using an alternative method. The study used ‘Daylight Coefficient’ to perform daylight calculation. ‘Waldram Diagram’ has been used to calculate the visible sky needed for the daylight coefficient method. Two experiments were conducted to find the upper and lower limits of daylight penetration throughout the year. The lowest levels have been analysed to determine the limiting depth of daylight while the difference between the lowest and highest penetration was considered for PSALI. The research found the depth of daylight was 3 m and 3.5 m from an adjacent window considering the lower limit for daylight of 500 lux and 300 lux, respectively. It also found that the depth of PSALI is different for different orientations. It is greater in the North-East, East, South-East, South-West, West and North-West directions compared to North and South orientations. This is due to the low solar altitude in the morning and afternoon. The research therefore, concludes that these depths may be taken under consideration in the pre-design phase of an office building in order to take maximum advantage of daylight usage in an office interior environment.

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In Malaysia, many issues have been connected to the parks in residential areas such as not being properly located, lack of facilities, not safe and the most important is poor maintenance. These issues also involve local parks whereby; parks users are not satisfied with the services of local authority. Users complain of lack of facilities, inadequate parking spaces and lack of safety and accessibility problems. It is important for planners, landscape architects, park managers and local authorities to look into these problems due to the increasing demands from the publics. In Kuala Lumpur, the situation is the same and has led to underutilization of local parks. There are 35 local parks in Kuala Lumpur. Of these, 3 parks have been selected for this study. These are: Burung Garuda Local Park, Padang Road Local Park and Senang Ria Local Park. 50 users from Garuda Road Local Park, 40 from Padang Road and 65 from Senang Ria Local Park were randomly selected and interviewed through a questionnaire. The sample covered 3 groups of park users’ namely male and female teenagers, adults and the elderly. There are differences in frequency of park use and time spent by park users. Park users at Burung Garuda and Padang Road visit the park once a week but park users at Senang Ria come daily. Park users frequently visit the parks because of the suitable location, easy access and safe environment. Lack of maintenance affects the frequency of park use. There is a relationship between frequency of park use with location, safety and security, maintenance and age of park users. Local parks should be located at suitable locations, be easily accessible and safe. In order for the parks to be used frequently, it is important to understand the park users’ needs, desires and demand for the recreational facilities of local parks. Most importantly, local parks should be managed efficiently in order to be in good condition and to avoid being underutilized

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Housing satisfaction is defined as the feeling of contentment when one has or achieves what one needs or desire in a house. Satisfaction has been used for measuring the success of housing developments, indicator of residential mobility, and hence of changing housing demands. This study investigates the house space, housing services, availability of public facilities and social environment which affects satisfaction levels as perceived by the residents of Sungai Bonus Public Housing Project or Projek Perumahan Rakyat Sungai Bonus in Kuala Lumpur. The housing was built during the Eighth Malaysia Plan under the public low-cost housing programme with intention to rehouse squatters as well as for the low income city community. The data was collected from 102 households living in the high rise low-cost housing project built by the Federal Government and managed by Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL). Stratified random sampling was the method used in data collection through the distribution of questionnaires and complemented with structured interviews. Descriptive and cross-tabular analyses were applied to the data. Pearson’s Chi-square and Spearman rank correlation coefficient statistics were also used on the data. The findings of the study indicate that a majority of residents were satisfied with the overall housing. Nevertheless, the survey results indicate that the levels of housing satisfaction were generally high with house space and services but low with the available facilities and social environment. Only a few aspects of house space show low satisfaction levels which includes size of kitchen and drying area. Low levels of satisfaction with the public facilities were due to inadequate numbers of playing courts, shops, car parking lots, poor condition of open space and motorcycle parking, small size of multi-purpose rooms and praying halls. Besides that the distance to various public facilities such as the light rail transit station, hospital, market, and library also indicate low satisfaction levels. The study has also identified that certain physical and social factors influence overall housing satisfaction. Improvements on the low satisfaction levels of the identified house factors which also influence overall housing satisfaction were recommended to enhance the residents’ living environment. This study implies that simply providing houses does not measure the success of housing programmes and policies but most importantly taking into account to fulfil the residents’ needs is essential for housing programmes to be successful.

Past studies have found that the client value system is not successfully achieved in the Nigerian construction industry (NCI). Consequently, the clients are frequently dissatisfied with their projects. Different attempts have been made to address this problem but unfortunately the problem still persists and unabated. Studies elsewhere suggest that value management is capable of facilitating the achievement of the client’s value system. Therefore, this research seeks to achieve the following objectives; (1) to determine whether value management is practiced in Nigeria; (2) to determine the dominant criteria of clients value system in Nigeria; (3) to determine whether value management can facilitate identifying the client value system in Nigeria and, (4) to determine whether it is possible to achieve client’s value system through value management in Nigeria. To achieve these objectives, the research has combined literature review and questionnaire survey. Three hundred questionnaires were administered on construction practitioners in Nigeria, out of which, one hundred and fifty two useable responses were analyzed for this research. This represents 51% effective response rate. The findings from the research suggest that value management is not formally practiced in the Nigerian construction industry and that quality of the projects is the dominant criterion within the Nigerian client value system. The findings also suggest that value management can facilitate the identifications of client value system in Nigeria. Finally, the results suggest that value management can also facilitate the achievement of client value system in Nigeria. Therefore, this research recommends introducing value management into the Nigerian construction industry in order to facilitate achieving the client value system.

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Airport terminals are one of the most energy intensive building types due to its size, design, occupants’ activities and twenty four hour operation. Due to recent development trends in airport design such as large expanse of glass and large airconditioned volumes, energy issues have emerged as an area of concern. In a tropical climate such as Malaysia, reduction in cooling load and energy management have come to the fore due to rising energy costs. This dissertation attempts to shed some lights on energy consumption pattern and load trends in large Malaysian airports with a focus on three case studies representing three categories of high passenger movement. During this study the general passive and active energy related features were assessed. Energy data was collected from these terminals by means of data loggers, documents and personal communications. Using the collected energy data, the relevant analysis was made to propose potential energy saving mechanisms and strategies. Among the obtained results include the load apportioning, building energy intensity, and load profile for these terminals. It is hoped that this study can contribute to the energy policy recommendations developed for Malaysian airports. This study can contribute to start implementation of energy efficiency policies and focus on the energy saving in terminal buildings which bring towards long-term operational cost savings and international recognition in sustainable design.

Mainstream residential location theories and models mainly consider the three factors of friction or distance from the work place, rent and house size as factors determining residential location. Although there are certain truths about such assumptions, it is clear that there may be other factors influencing residential location decision making. This research attempted to identify the array of factors and the extent to which they influence residential location of households. The scope of the research is narrowed down to employees of the International Islamic University Malaysia. The findings of the research illustrated the importance of the commuting costs in determining residential location. Rents on the other hand were found to have no influence on the residential location of respondents. Examining other variables for their impact on residential location brought forwards three additional factors: the location of the workplace of the spouse, home ownership and the respondents' duration of service at the current workplace. These factors are not taken into consideration in any of the land use structure models discussed earlier in the research but were found to have an influence on residential location choice of households.

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