Decision Support Framework for Space-Use Efficiency and Arrangement of Public Services

Abstract

This article focuses on the issue of a sustainable space-use in public facilities and beneficial arrangement of services. Uncorrelated facility planning and service programming as well as environmental factors cause discrepancies between space demand and space supply leading to space overuse or underuse. To enhance the functional and economic efficiency of public facilities, a conceptual framework, which is a planning and evaluation tool for decision support, is presented and discussed in examples. The framework consists of two decisive elements: space-use analysis and service compatibility analysis. The first one aims to determine the degree of space utilization in multiple public buildings while the latter reports on how services are related to each other in terms of their compatibility. The article explains these concepts in detail in examples.