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Designing for less maintenance: Lessons learned from flood damaged buildings

Abstract:

Modern buildings are designed to meet higher builder standards which demand longer life span with minimum maintenance needs. It is of great importance that maintenance aspects are being considered during the design to ensure the future performance of the building is achieved. With the increasing costs of new construction, effective and efficient maintenance of existing buildings has become more important. Previously many building owners believed that maintenance should only be done in a purely reactive manner. However, with increasing level of maintenance knowledge, majority agree that maintenance should be planned and managed efficiently. Inevitably, this has placed new demands on building designers, requiring them to adopt a more maintenancesensitive design during the design process. This is where the concept of design for less maintenance comes in. This paper described the lessons learned from three case studies of flood damaged buildings in Johor, Malaysia. The causes of the damaged and its associated costs are described. Considering three case studies, factors identified that the designers need to consider improving future designs especially in minimizing maintenanceneeds. © 2013 American Scientific Publishers All rights reserved.