Total Building Performance Evaluation (Cases of Selected Buildings Within Federal College of Education, Akinmorin, Oyo State)

This project studies building performance evaluation with cases of selected buildings within Federal College of Education, Akinmorin, Oyo State. 

INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY Architects, designers and building occupants (and/or users) and other professionals involved in building construction over the years have generated series of controversies in the design, planning, use, and maintenance of buildings (and its environs) and the level of satisfaction they provide. A comfortable indoor environment is an important parameter in the productivity, happiness and satisfaction of building occupants. As such, building on completion should perform its functions in the manner that will ensure desirable satisfaction to its occupants, therefore, the design and implementation of buildings should be given careful thoughts and considerations. Regular maintenance programs conducted after the building has been occupied also ensure that a building functions well at all times. Natasha Khalil (2000) said that by the execution of these maintenance programs, the occupants will be able to use and utilize the facilities as the provision of facilities supports the business operations by the building occupants. In short, the building facilities and services must be fit for the purpose of the users. It should however be noted that there are some instances where irrespective of the level of maintenance executed, once a building does not fit into the environmental fabrics at inception, it may be difficult for such a building to meet the required comfort for utmost productivity of its occupants. Again, emphasis on resource management, in particular energy and economic resources, has put a new stress on the building industry in addition to the traditional building demands of health, safety, and welfare. This abrupt emphasis of a single building requirement has in turn triggered a series of measurable building failure For 2 example, a demand for air tightness has raised questions of air quality and building inadequacies regarding human health. It is not the focus on energy conservation or other resource management efforts that is at fault for building failures, but the lack of transdisciplinary understanding of the impact of each building performance mandate has on the other performance areas. It is therefore the challenge of the 1980s and 1990s to understand the critical balance needed to simultaneously ensure the fulfilment of all building performance mandates. The importance of understanding the total performance of a building in a holistic sense is undeniable. In many instances, building evaluation is a first priority as it is imperative to know the status quo of the building before one can effectively predict future building performance (ASCE). The concept of overall performance, Total Building Performance (TBP), emerged in the last decades of 20th century, provides a tool for assessing the quality of a building, in terms of the extent to which all the requirements of performance are satisfied (Cortana & Goretti, 2007; Roulet, 2004). In order for buildings to achieve its purpose of providing desirable satisfaction to its occupants, its design process, planning, construction and management are based on statutory standards and specifications established by governments, professionals and experts who are supposed to have adequate knowledge of users’ needs and expectations (Eziyi Offia Ibem, Akunnaya P. Opoko, Albert B.Adeboye, Dolapo Amole). Studies according to Kaitilla, 1993, Ukoha and Beamish, 1997; Zeiler and Boxem, 2008; Meir (2009) et al have however shown that sometimes these standards and specifications do not conform to the chang