Users' Perception of Comfort Experienced in Academic Buildings of Selected Universities in Ogun State, Nigeria
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Abstract
Description
In architectural design, the level of comfort experienced in the spaces created serve
as one of the units of measurement in assessing a complete design. In a country tropical climate
such as Nigeria, indoor environmental conditions are primarily influenced by many factors,
including lighting, ventilation, indoor air quality, sound quality and building materials
employed. This study investigated users’ comfort satisfaction level in relation to environmental
design consideration factors in academic buildings of selected universities in Ota, Ogun State,
Nigeria, with a view to identify areas for improvement towards making contributions that will
help to improve users' satisfaction in the development of academic environments. The study
adopted a quantitative research method that used a structured questionnaire to collect data from
291 respondents, out of which 271 are students and 19 are lecturers. The users’ sample size was
drawn from the Department of Architecture students and lecturers of two selected universities
in the study area. The data were analyzed with the aid of Statistical Product and Service Solutions
software and presented descriptively with the aid of tables. The results showed that majority of
the respondents in the selected universities attested to the adequacy of the four environmental
design consideration factors investigated, with the factors recording various levels of
adequacies. In few areas were the factors were inadequate, the foremost reason was the
inadequacy of the indoor air quality, followed by that of lighting before ventilation. Also,
daylighting in classrooms and ventilation in offices was found to be inadequate in one of the
universities, while the inadequacy of ventilation in offices in the other university was
significantly high. The study recommended that building industry designers should pay more
attended to means of achieving adequate indoor air quality, lighting and ventilation in academic
buildings, without compromising achieving adequacy of sound quality found to be generally
satisfactory. The study has implications for policy formulation, designs and researches that strive
towards meeting users’ comfort satisfaction level in the development of academic environments.
Keywords
NA Architecture, TH Building construction