The construction of terraced houses is the main contributor to the successful development of housing industry in Malaysia but illegal changes and modifications by buyers and occupants may diminish its original identity or characteristics. The physical adaptation and adjustment made by the occupants to fit their utilitarian needs could result in the extensive modification of the housing facilities and the relocation of spatial distribution. Since alteration and renovations are always done and made without proper control, terraced house in Malaysia has lost its originality. This paper provides literature reviews on housing modifications specifically in terms of design consideration and changes in design. It describes the relationship between human and their territory and space which then leads to changes in lifestyle and design. Finally, a conclusion is drawn on the effect of altering the appearance and the change of the original architectural character.

Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) problems are very important and necessary to consider in hospital and health care facilities such as in AMBULATORY CARE CENTRE XYZ (ACCXYZ), Malaysia. Majority complaints made by the hospital staff at level 1, state that they felt uncomfortable and suffering coldness due to very low temperature of centralizing air-conditioning especially during non-peak hours. Therefore, five parameters pointed to be measured based on the complaints from staff due to IAQ problems especially from Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system. By using 4 in 1 Meter Kit, three environmental parameters recorded such as air temperature (t), relative humidity (RH) and air velocity (AV) and the average result are 22.5°C, 57.7% and 0.02 m/s, respectively. Meanwhile, two chemical parameters recorded are carbon dioxide (CO2) with 875ppm and formaldehyde (CH2O) is 0.11ppm were measured using IAQ Calc model 7545 and Formaldehyde Meter Z-300 devices value within the standard. Thus, the result shows that the HVAC system affects the IAQ parameters in ACCXYZ building through a major impact on the temperature due to patient and staff environment and also to the operation of the sensitive machine in the building.

Daylight is often used as a natural light source in order to reduce the consumption of energy in a building and maintain sustainability during the daytime. This study finds that the residential college design is lacking of passive solar control devices to control the daylight penetration into the building which causes discomfort due to direct sunlight problems. This paper identified and analyzed the daylighting performance of the residential college's living area via computer simulations. The daylight performance for the living area of the residential college has been investigated in terms of daylight factor and indoor illuminance. The excessive amount of daylight penetration in the living area can be optimized by upgrading the windows with external shading devices. An external shading device is proposed in this study to avoid the intensity of solar radiation and transfer direct sunlight into the living area. The external shading device design is chosen suitably to the building design. SketchUp software is used to simulate the building design into two 3D models, the first model is a building without shading devices and the second model is a building with shading devices. The 3D models are converted into 2D models using VELUX Daylight Visualizer software. Daylight factor and indoor illuminance are analyzed using VELUX Daylight Visualizer software to calculate the extent of daylight penetrations. Then, the results generated by VELUX Daylight Visualizer software are used to compare the building without shading devices and the building with shading devices. The results showed that the building with shading devices installation are more effective in optimizing the daylight penetration. Therefore, shading devices should be included in the design of the residential colleges to create a comfortable thermal condition for the occupants.

Structures in Malaysia, particularly commercial buildings, have been exceeding the benchmark of building energy usage over the past few years. By maintaining thermal comfort of building under hot climate in Malaysia, air-conditioning system became a basic demand which incessantly operating to fulfil comfort requirement for the occupants in the library. Regards to this, research on energy efficiency using Building Information Modelling (BIM) software by simulating energy analysis was carried out in order to increase energy efficiency of the library. Mineral wool and Polyurethane Foam (P.U.F.) are the materials which proposed to apply in existing wall of building as the thermal insulation layer to increase thermal resistance when external heat transfer through the walls. The Objective of the study is to determine the existing building energy consumption and compare with energy analysis of mineral wool and polyurethane foam. The findings of the building energy analysis simulated by Green Building Studio (GBS) are then compared to discover the most appropriate walls for reducing the building’s energy consumption. P.U.F with its characteristics of high R-value and low U-value, obtain the most effective energy analysis which provide benefits of lowering total annual energy consumption of 294,651 , total annual energy cost of RM 107,645, and energy use intensity (EUI) of 121.7.

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