TAKING ACTION: HOW DOES THE BUILDING ENVIRONMENT INFLUENCE ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOUR OF OCCUPANTS IN SINGAPORE HIGH-RISE APARTMENTS?

Abstract

Adaptive behaviour is the actions taken by occupants to improve their comfort and satisfaction when occupying a space. In the context of public housing, users have greater initiative and responsibility for their own personal comfort and thus, these actions are often taken to alleviate uncomfortable conditions, especially when considering the hot and humid climatic conditions of Singapore. While this can be seen as a result of the building performing inadequately to cater to the user, the reality may be more complex. The current literature primarily studies these actions in isolation of one main building performance parameter, and so do not provide a complete picture. The aims of this study is to investigate and understand the main drivers for these actions in a more complete picture. It does so through Post Occupancy Evaluation; by surveying the occupants in Tanglin Halt, Singapore, the study hopes to reveal the various relationships and correlations between adaptive behaviour and user satisfaction. This is done through a combination of questionnaire surveys on difference satisfaction parameters and observation schedules done by the investigator. The results will then be analysed and compared to see if there are any meaningful results and whether they agree with traditional literature. The results obtained from this study reveal that that there is very little correlation between actions taken and user satisfaction with comfort or building performance. However, for less tangible parameters like quality of life factors, there is a correlation between state of repair of the house and many satisfaction parameters, including satisfaction with security and fire safety. The study has also found that the psychological well-being is as important as physiological comfort, because many satisfaction parameters are correlated with other satisfaction parameters, despite having little physical interactions with each other. Furthermore, the study revealed that the adaptive behaviour is often a symptom of poor comfort conditions, and that the actions itself does little to alleviate their problems. The findings from this study imply that professionals need to look beyond individual comfort metrics as independent benchmarks in their discipline and instead look at the overall holistic well-being of the occupant.