The hot dry climatic zone of Nigeria is characterized by a period of high temperature and low relative humidity between February and May. Between these months, the daily mean maximum indoor temperature of most buildings is about 37ºC with low indoor air velocity. A study of residential buildings in Bauchi state, Nigeria shows that most occupants of the buildings have persistent and growing problems with the indoor environment due to high indoor temperature. Most buildings are characterized by poor design in relation to the climate, which requires a great deal of energy for cooling during climatic extremes. Other problems are poor natural ventilation, inadequate surfacevolume ratio and poor building orientation. This has led to negative consequence that affect the occupant's physiological comfort, capacity for mental and physical work, health and leisure. This paper identifies passive design strategies that can be adopted in this climatic region to minimize the use of energy for cooling, improve occupant's comfort and enhance low energy architecture. The objective is to reduce overdependence on electricity demand and energy use in residential buildings. The result of the study shows that adopting certain passive design strategies through appropriate selection of building materials, proper building orientation, adequate natural ventilation and application of some design elements can provide natural cooling and reduce the energy used for cooling in the buildings. The paper concludes that this will limit the energy demand for cooling and will also result in an adapted architecture to the climatic environment, which will encourage innovation design solutions for building professionals in a hot-dry climate.

No abstract

Nigeria’s housing provision is perceived in terms of quantity with less attention to its quality and impact on people’s health. The quality of indoor air in housing and its associated risks to human health was assessed in this paper to improve housing provision in Nigeria. Quantitative data collected from Bauchi, Nigeria includes household surveys, housing characteristics, indoor carbon dioxide (CO2), and particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10). PM2.5 and PM10 recorded in the building were (63 μm/m3) and (228 μm/m3) and observed to be greater than safe values of 25 μm/m3 (PM2.5) and 50 μm/m3 (PM10) recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Some building features associated with some ailments were found to be risk factors. The study recommended a redirection for more quality housing provision. It concludes that housing characteristics should be targeted for public health interventions as a means of improving the quality of urban housing in Nigeria.

In Nigerian, public building projects (PBPs) failure and abandonment constitutes one of the hindrances to the development of the nation’s economic system. Therefore, the links between PBPs management success and the built environment professionals (BEPs) is becoming an important field of attention. This study evaluates the application of project planning techniques in PBPs in Nigeria and project planning challenges related to their successful delivery. Review of relevant literature combined with experts’ input revealed twenty three factors; this form the basis for designing a questionnaire adopted to collect relevant data from BEPs. Findings identified poor strategic project planning aligned to project success, unrealistic expectation and overly bureaucratic hiccups from project initiators as the most critical factors influencing project management practices (PMP) affecting success in PBP delivery. The study suggests that unsuccessful project delivery is a reflection of inappropriately applied project planning techniques leading to serious project planning challenges.