Postoccupancy Evaluation for Student Housing with a Focus on Maintenance Planning, Design Process, and Client Requirement

Abstract

The improvement of facility maintenance and operation practices for constructed buildings is a major concern for all facility management (FM) firms worldwide. The owner, planner, and developer of housing projects, especially projects that are repeated, are eager to enhance the quality of the coming projects based on satisfaction of the current facility occupants. Little research has been conducted to link occupants’ requirements and satisfaction with FM practices or with the design of future facilities. The main purpose of this research was to determine students’ satisfaction with and obtain their qualitative feedback regarding a hostel facility to determine whether the constructed facility is providing the performance needed by users of the facility. The research also evaluated the housing facility from the occupants’ perspective and correlated this with the current maintenance practices to improve the maintenance planning and the overall performance of the facility. A survey covering 56 different performance attributes was conducted using a questionnaire distributed to the students. The overall level of satisfaction with the studied attributes indicated that the students generally were satisfied with the housing facility. This study will enable the maintenance administration and the university management to identify areas of students’ dissatisfaction with housing facility, which will help to improve the performance and the overall satisfaction. Thus, the results and findings from this study will keep the quality of future constructed students housing up to the desired standards and level of service. The study contributes to the body of knowledge on improving student accommodation in higher education and provides valuable insight to the facility management.