Zulhabri Ismail

Design guideline for sustainable green roof system

Green roof system has many potential benefits such as environmental benefits, amenity and aesthetic benefits, and economic benefits. The principal aim of this research is to improve the quality of green roof systems in Malaysia by developing design guidelines for green roof systems. This research will identify the performance benefits of green roof, the current phenomenon of green roof as well the obstacles to adopt green roof system. Mixed method of qualitative and quantitative approach will be applied in this research. The review of the literature will be conducted to gather information about green roof in order to identify the benefits of green roof systems. Surveys will be conducted among two target populations, namely developers and architects who work in the Malaysian construction industry. Developers and architects will be selected because of their involvement in the design stage of the building construction. Case study will be the important component to achieve the objectives of this research. This research is attempted to develop design guidelines for green roof systems in Malaysia. The findings from this research will hopefully open new avenues and fields for future researchers and academicians to carry out extensive researches on the topics concerned.

Framework policy for sustainable construction in Malaysia

Since the construction industry has great impact on the environment, the consideration of sustainable development through sustainable construction is needed. Sustainable construction provides solutions that require optimization of all types of beneficial environmental impact. Therefore, sustainable construction is important in order to achieve sustainable development, taking into consideration the environment, economic and social issues. This paper is a review of sustainable practices in construction industry. This research proposed a mixed method of qualitative and quantitative research to develop a framework policy for sustainable construction in Malaysia. This framework will include new strategies and guidelines that can be used as criteria to benchmark the gaps in process and strategies for sustainable construction industry in order to capture good practices in terms of minimizing environmental impacts and improving Malaysian readiness towards the sustainable issues.

Obstacles to adopt green roof in Malaysia

The building industry is considered as the largest contributor of negative impacts to the environment especially in urban areas. In Malaysia, sustainability issues have become crucial to mitigate urban heat island and reduce global warming effect. One of the ways to reduce global warming and urban heat island is by adopting green roofs on buildings. However, the application of green roofs in Malaysia is still low whereby only few buildings in Malaysia have adopted green roofs. This paper aims to identify the obstacles in adopting green roofs in Malaysia. The survey that has been done revealed that there are nine factors that hinder the green roof application in Malaysia. More efforts are needed to encourage building practitioners to adopt green roofs. Therefore, it is important that buildings in Malaysia to adopt green roofs in order to protect the environment especially in urban areas.

Comparative study on green roof mechanism in developed countries

The building industry is known to have a great impact towards the environment in urban areas, green roof systems are seen as a way to mitigate its negative impacts. Developed countries such as Germany, Canada, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong have widely adopted green roofs in urban areas in order to reduce the negative impact construction activities especially in the cities. Each one of these countries has their own methods of encouraging building owners to adopt green roofs. Developed countries such as Germany, Canada, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong has taken their fare share in applying green roofs into their building industry. Thus, it is crucial for the Malaysian government to impose and instil the green roofs into our local building industry. This paper analyses the comparison of the green roof mechanism applied in Germany, Canada, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. The findings from this paper will contribute more information and better idea on how to implement and attract public sector in Malaysia to adopt green roofs.

Tracking architectural defects in the Malaysian hospital projects

Building defects are always the key concern in the construction projects. Defects represent not only a loss to the project but also hamper the smooth running of the building when in operation when completed. Recognising the need to resolve the continuing problem of defects in their projects, the clients of public hospital projects in Malaysia piloted a scheme to manage defects in public hospital projects during the Defects Liability Period (DLP). This paper presents part of the research which investigates what can be drawn from the analysis of architectural defects in these projects. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was adopted. The findings suggest that with a proper methodology in place, there is much that can be learnt from the studying the cause of the defect. This can provide very useful insights to their root cause and how this can avoided in future projects.

Exploring lean construction components for Malaysian construction industry

Malaysian construction industry is suffering problem of producing high wastage and low productivity. Lean construction is an approach which is feasible to cope with the situation and it will be more significant to be applied by all players in Malaysian construction industry. Thus, this paper is to review the lean construction concept and components which are applicable in Malaysian construction industry. It was found that lean construction components comprise of principles, criteria and tools. Components are designated to convey the concept of lean construction which is to add value and eliminate the non added value in acquiring construction end product.

Soft skills implementation in construction management program: A survey of Malaysian public universities

The higher education provision in Malaysia has been criticized for not producing graduates with adequate soft skills. On the conviction that the traditional curriculum are inadequate in developing graduates who are more “generally” savvy, the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) has instructed all higher education institutions to change their curriculum to the Outcome-Based Education (OBE) curriculum. The outline of what soft skills to be learnt, how the learning should be delivered and assessed should be in place for the curriculum to be effective. This is more so in the design of construction management degree curriculum which require a balance of teaching technical subjects and soft skills. Most of the construction management degree programs offered by the higher education institutions in Malaysia is now operating on the soft skills outlined in the OBE curriculum but critics continue to argue that the graduate are still short of the soft skills required. In conceiving this problem a research was mooted to examine the vexing issues of soft skills outlined in the OBE curriculum design and delivery. This paper presents the first part of the research study which investigates the issues of ambiguity of soft skills in construction management OBE curriculum. Data were drawn from a survey that was carried out on construction management lecturers from three public universities. This finding provided some significant insights which suggest elements of the soft skills outlined in the OBE curriculum which needs to be re-learnt. This would help to identify and remove the ambiguities in conceiving how soft skills should be taught and assessed.

Fundamental elements of sustainable private financing initiative contracts

According to Confederation of British Industry, better positions in benefiting from Private Financing Initiative (PFI) projects is focusing on long term priorities such as environmental sustainability, flexibility and transparency. Hence, more projects to be procured using PFI scheme contracts to aid financing aspects during shortage of funds and going ‘greener’. The research statement is whether the PPP/PFI contracts would deliver sustainable green PFI projects with existence of ambiguity of sustainable contracts and poor implementations of sustainable green elements for the case in Malaysia.

An evaluation of the competencies, skills and knowledge of Quantity Surveying graduates in consultant Quantity Surveying firms in Malaysia

A significant proportion of graduate quantity surveyors serving Quantity Surveying (QS) firms in Malaysia are produced by the local higher institutions of learning. Upon employment, employers expect them to be behaviorally and technically competent to participate and undertake the range of quantity surveying tasks. Whilst the academic programs offered by the universities and colleges are commonly designed to be recognised and accredited by the Board of Quantity Surveyors Malaysia (BQSM) and/or the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the courses tends to be designed and delivered variably between universities and colleges. This in-turn tends to result in graduates bringing different levels of competencies into their job. Conceiving the significance of understanding this phenomenon for the Malaysian higher education and the construction industry, a research was mooted to ascertain the level of competencies that the QS graduates from the Malaysian higher education bring into their employment. The aim was to assess the extent to which the QS higher education provision was able to meet the employment needs and the variable levels of competencies produced by the QS higher education providers. A knowledge and skills framework was developed and data was sought from employers of graduates from these higher education institutions. The results suggest that, in the main, graduates from each of these institutions tend to be more competent in some aspects of technical and behavioral competencies then some other. Tangible comparison can also be made to compare the competencies of graduates between these institutions from the research. These provided useful insights for employers to appreciate which graduates from which institution is competent in what. The findings can also be served as a key reference for the institutions to moot academic improvement initiatives.

Participation of Malaysia Under the Montreal Protocol and the Kyoto Protocol

The ozone hole in Antarctica has created a major buzz in the environmental protection realm. This devastating event has escalated the environmental concerns and has also spawned a series of environmental protocols. This paper highlights the two environmental protocols namely, the Montreal Protocol and the Kyoto Protocol. Furthermore, the paper also focuses on the involvement of Malaysia under both protocols. This paper is designed to not only review the essences in both protocols but also analyses the measures taken by Malaysia under these protocols. The literature review has revealed numerous efforts that have been administered by Malaysia to comply with the obligations under both protocols. These measures are taken into action to not only fulfil the commitments under the protocols but also to create a better nation gearing towards sustainable development and a cleaner environment.