Visual accessibility refers to the legibility and intelligibility of space cues that most contribute to the searching and use of information from the environment for wayfinding in hospitals. Because of building complexity and expansions over time, there is a lack of visual clarity to navigate and access the most desired destinations in the hospital. However, the inaccessibility of space by many unfamiliar users of any age, gender, or disability resulted in disorientation, uncertainty, stress, frustration, getting lost, and missed medical appointments. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact and barriers of visual accessibility on wayfinding in hospital buildings. Mixed-method approach combined quantitative and qualitative measures for the study area with focus on General Outpatients Departments (GOPD). A simple random sampling technique was used to select 98 participants. 24 respondents were selected for interview, while GOPD hospital buildings were observed for data elicitation. The main findings show that some of the circulation spaces were crowded with patients, and that most destinations within the GOPD were not visible from the main entrance. In addition, indistinctive nodes act as barriers, rendering some buildings inaccessible during navigation. It also revealed that signage, unit building entrances, and lighting were legible and properly positioned, enhancing space accessibility during wayfinding. The main limitations of this study are the absence of physically challenged people and the elderly in the research process, as well as cultural and linguistic differences. The implications are that designers should make simplified building layout more legible to the wide group of users such that core sections are visible and interlinked with high traffic flow pathways in the hospital for inclusive wayfinding. This study suggested solutions to the problems of visual accessibility in the hospital could improve all users' inclusive wayfinding, increase satisfaction, confidence, reduce confusion during direction-finding in the hospital.

Environmental noise constitutes a major contributor to environmental pollution, with its unintended consequences posing a serious challenge to public health in the built environment. This study assessed the perception and the implications of urban environmental noise on urban residents' wellbeing. Data was collected using a sound pressure level meter and a self-developed questionnaire. Findings from eight hundred and eighty (880) responses obtained through random sampling were analysed and benchmarked against national (50 dBA) and international (55 dBA) standards by the WHO. The results showed that noise from places of worship and traffic noise were rated high, with about 75 percent of the respondents indicating that environmental noise negatively impacts their wellbeing. The study suggested the need for improved environmental quality in the built environment. It advocated for synergistic interventions from architects, other built environment professionals, and environmental protection agencies to tackle urban environmental pollution in residential environments. The contribution of this research lies in the necessity for further investigation, since it has important ramifications for architects, urban planners, and urban managers.

Rural to urban migration has been a disturbing factor in Nigeria. The urban cities have become over populated resulting into poor provision of comfortable and healthy accommodation for the citizenry. The menace has further metamorphosed into complex units of socio-economic and cultural degradation, increasing youth unemployment, poor housing delivery, and depletion of the ozone layers due to carbon dioxide emission from small electric generators called "I pass my neighbor". The situation is no longer convenient to be curtailed because of the limitations of the existing institution to provide mechanism to curtail the growing challenges. This indicates a factor of undermining urban poor of affordable and decent housing, which makes them "homeless. The research aims at conveying into luminance the drivers of low energy materials that could be employed through sustainable measures to deliver public housing in Nigeria. The objective brings forth considerations for application of low energy materials that can be integrated at the design stage to reduce the energy used in achieving comfort and limit the overall energy consumption of residential buildings in Nigeria. The purpose is to make public housing affordable and sustainable in Nigeria. The study employed the use of qualitative data analysis from relevant literatures. The results obtained indicate the high energy delivery in Nigeria's public housing reflects the overgrowing poverty level in the country. The population living in poverty has remarkably grown from 1980-2010. This factor has made it difficult for the majority poor populace to own a house due to the high cost involved in obtaining a high energy material for building construction. The study recommends a drift to low energy materials, which involves lesser energy of production and are locally found in the country, and tends to provide affordable housing to the poor living in urban centers. Hempcrete, cob, raw earth, sheep wool, bamboo, rice hull, wattle and daub, rammed earth, the mud, adobe, fire brick, are available traditional building materials with low energy richly found in Nigeria, government and private developers should adopt them in construction of dwellings to curtail the limited provided accommodation for the increasing population in urban centers and to provide decent, affordable, and sustainable accommodation to Nigerians.

Many studies have shown that wayfinding is affected by the familiarity of subjects with the environment. Wayfinding difficulties are caused due to the complexities of building configuration and evolving spaces that emerge over time in response to operational needs and change which results in disorientation, uncertainty, anxiety, frustration, and stress. Alarge hospital environment greatly influences the wayfinding behaviour of newcomers,which could be stressful and intimidating for them. This study explores the wayfinding behaviour of unfamiliar users in the acquisition of knowledge of the environment with the aim to improve wayfinding competence in hospitals. The study was carried out at Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH), situated in the Plateau State of Nigeria.The methods used for data collection were walking-with observation, verbal protocol and a semi-structured interview.These methods indicated the participants’level of wayfinding performance during the navigation aimed to find the desired destination. The respondents, n 16 (8 male and 8 female),were purposively sampled and observed through behavioural mapping. Additionally, 24 respondents were separately interviewed in order to triangulate the findings of behavioural mapping. The findings revealed that the majority (62.5%) of respondents found the building layout complex to navigate due to their spatial similarities.Additionally, the wayfinding experience of the majority (95.8%) of respondents in the hospital was established to be difficult and stressful. Also, the result proved that 60% of female wayfinders were more prone to wayfinding errors than male wayfinders in finding their way to the desired destination due to the complexity of the building layout. The study recommends that building configuration design in hospitals should be organised in a simple way and it should be constantly reviewed as new spaces evolve.The implication calls for an improved design which remains distinctive and a well-linked layout that facilitates effective and efficient wayfinding for unfamiliar users in a safe and satisfactory manner.