Sustainable Historical Government Building Assessment Via Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE)

Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) is a diagnostic tool for facility managers or building managers to identify and evaluate critical aspects of building performance systematically. This system enables identification of problem areas in existing buildings and development of design guidance and criteria for future building and facilities. The historical buildings in Malaysia are unique and are valuable assets to the country for their historical values and tourism potential. However, most of these buildings have generally deteriorated and not functioning the way they were intended to. Refurbishment works done will facilitate the keeping of the buildings to their original characteristics and fulfil their functions. Post Occupancy Evaluation is vitally needed to ensure that overall building performance is sustained. This study is aimed to review the POE concept towards refurbished historical government buildings by highlighting the building performance in areas of functional and technical performance. Secondly, it is to determine the performance satisfaction level from the building occupants’ perspectives. Methods adopted in this study are semi-structured interviews to related professionals and organisations, questionnaires to the building management teams, the users and the public, and site investigations on seven (7) selected historical government buildings in the metropolitan city of Kuala Lumpur. The findings revealed that building performance criteria highly correlated with the occupants’ satisfaction.