INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL BUILDING ASSESSMENT TOOLS ON QUALITY OF LIFE OF OFFICE BUILDINGS

Abstract

The emergence of Green Building Assessment methods dates back to 1990 when BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) was first introduced by UK. Subsequent years witnessed the maturation of this field with the evolution of successive generation of various building assessment methods. Many Green building assessment tools put high weighting on the energy and water consumption related criteria, as they are relatively easier to measure. Such single dimensional approach does not justify the overall building performance. These criteria only accounts for the “Greenness” of the building. A sustainable building should not only be capable of reducing the largest amount energy, but should also ensure the quality of the environment is ideal so as to produce a comfortable space for the users. In this paper, two Green Building Assessment methods (CASBEE and BCA Green Mark) will be studied to get an overview of how much quality of life is accounted for in these assessment methods. Subsequently a framework for quality of life that is specific to office building environment will be developed. This framework will then be used as the main guideline for the questionnaire used in the case studies, which investigate the quality of life in two office buildings. The study seeks to understand if the assessment of an office building by the current environmental building assessment tools will encourage the architects and other concerned professionals to put more considerations into the design of the quality of the working environment. The hypothesis is that the amount of emphasis that an Environmental Building Assessment Tool places on the quality of life factors influences how well considered the quality of working environment is. However, the results from the survey have proven otherwise, probably due to external factors such as demographic difference and psychological issue of the respondents. Further analysis of result of individual factor suggests there is indeed a possibility of rating systems having influence on the design to some extent as criteria that are accounted for in the rating tools are better considered than the other. This perhaps suggests a possible implementation of more quality of life criteria into the assessment to encourage architects to develop more strategies to enhance the spatial quality.