Nuzaihan Aras Agus Salim

This study investigates how rainwater harvesting drainage systems can help mitigate flash flood risks in historic urban areas facing increasing threats from rapid development and climate change. Historic cities often have extensive impermeable surfaces, such as roads and buildings, preventing water from soaking into the ground. This leads to greater surface runoff during heavy rainfall, heightening the risk of flash floods. The research evaluates the effectiveness of existing rainwater harvesting drainage systems by combining quantitative data analysis and qualitative case studies. Field data are analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to ensure robust results. Key features of successful systems include their capacity to capture, store, and redirect excess rainwater, thus reducing surface runoff volume and speed. Early findings show that rainwater harvesting drainage systems effectively reduce flash flood risk by promoting water infiltration and conserving rainwater for reuse. These benefits align with sustainable urban development goals. Additionally, enhancing drainage infrastructure can protect public buildings, homes, and critical services from flood damage, offering economic and social advantages. The study concludes by recommending improvements in drainage system design, legal enforcement, and urban planning practices. It emphasises the importance of context-appropriate solutions and regulatory compliance to building flood-resilient historic cities. Ultimately, these insights are intended to guide urban planners, policymakers, and developers in making informed decisions for safeguarding heritage cities from urban flooding.

Urban areas in Malaysia, such as Penang, are experiencing rapid growth in waste generation, while traditional methods like landfilling and incineration remain inefficient and unsustainable. These challenges demand smarter, technology-driven solutions. Japan has successfully implemented a Smart Waste Management System (SWMS) using Internet of Things (IoT) technology to optimise collection, enhance recycling, and reduce environmental impact. However, the feasibility of adopting such systems in Malaysia remains uncertain due to differences in infrastructure, policy, and socio-economic conditions. This study aims to assess the potential for adapting Japan’s SWMS to Penang as a representative urban area in Malaysia. The research objectives are to identify key challenges, evaluate the risks involved, and propose strategies for effective implementation. A comparative case study approach was adopted, combining qualitative and quantitative methods. Surveys were distributed to Penang residents to gather public perceptions and awareness levels, while field observations focused on waste collection practices. Additionally, expert interviews were conducted with officials from Majlis Bandaraya Pulau Pinang (MBPP) to explore policy, infrastructure, and operational insights. A SWOT analysis was then applied to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of integrating smart waste technologies within the local context. The findings are expected to provide practical recommendations for improving Malaysia’s urban waste management through IoT-based solutions, offering a foundation for future policy and infrastructure development.

There are many different types of building designs available today. As a result, the focus of the design is on the quality of the building's paint. The unique use of paint, as well as the quality and durability of the paint will increase the visual value of the building. Thus, the researchers believe that the fading of the paint color on the exterior walls of the building is caused by a natural factor which is the sun's rays. The researchers have decided to conduct an in-depth study of paint fading as well as potential methods to overcome and control the problem produced by sunlight on paint. This experimental study aims to identify a solution for the fading paint color caused by sun radiation on the external wall of the building. This study used two approaches to examine paint color fading, including a literature review and interviews with a panel of experts. This study also focused on solutions that can be implemented to meet the objective of the study, which was to study the effects of sun radiation on paint fading on the external walls of the building, determine the actions that need to be taken to reduce fading on the external walls and recommend solutions of retaining the paint coloring external wall of the building.

A university’s main function is to produce quality graduates, and in doing so, university buildings do play significant roles and are vital assets and resources. Hence, to prolong a university building lifecycle to ensure all university activities to continue performing at an optimum level, building maintenance management is central. Eventhough previous studies have been conducted in this area, university buildings maintenance is still viewed as insignificant. The research about utilization of infrared thermography in term of maintenance in public universities is still lacking. The objective of this research was to provide recommendations for areas within the public universities that can benefit from the application of infrared thermography to enhance maintenance. The research method used in this research was a qualitative method. Three public universities that were established for more than 50 years were chosen as case studies. The data was collected through narrative review and then analyzed. The findings highlighted the benefits of implementing infrared thermography in older building maintenance within public universities, particularly in improving energy efficiency and identifying hidden issues such as moisture intrusion and structural defects. The study emphasized the importance of timely maintenance actions based on infrared thermography assessments to reduce energy consumption and apply predictive maintenance strategies. By conducting in-depth analyses at three established public universities in Malaysia, the researchers demonstrate the effectiveness of infrared thermography in enhancing maintenance practices and prolonging the lifecycle of university buildings.

A university’s main function is to produce quality graduates, and in doing so, university buildings do play significant roles and are vital assets and resources. Hence, to prolong a university building lifecycle to ensure all university activities to continue performing at an optimum level, building maintenance management is central. Even though several previous studies have been conducted in this area, university buildings maintenance is still viewed as insignificant. The research about utilization of infrared thermography in term of maintenance in public universities is still lacking. The objective of this research to provide recommendations for area within the public universities that can benefit from the application of infrared thermography to enhance maintenance. The research method used in this research is a qualitative method. Three public universities that was established for more than 50 years were chosen as case studies. The data was collected through narrative review and the data was then analysed. The findings highlight the benefits of implementing infrared thermography in older building maintenance within public universities, particularly in improving energy efficiency and identifying hidden issues such as moisture intrusion and structural defects. The study emphasizes the importance of timely maintenance actions based on infrared thermography assessments to reduce energy consumption and apply predictive maintenance strategies. By conducting in-depth analyses at three established public universities in Malaysia, the researchers demonstrate the effectiveness of infrared thermography in enhancing maintenance practices and prolonging the lifecycle of university buildings.

The passion of self-cleaning potential on palm tree species contributing to building envelope design maintenance through biomimetic architecture is the notion of this exploration. The greediness of property investors that are more concerned on building design to strive the sustainability rather than the maintenance strategic on their building. However, the uniqueness on building shapes and patterns of this envelope confronts with main complications on surface maintenance in associates with pollution such as air-bone, water-bone and grease-born pollution that also trap in air moisture. Furthermore, the selection of material is the important fragment in building envelope cleanliness to design the sustainable maintenance. In conjunction, the palm tree foreseen as self-cleaning building envelope that has the potential to develop the resilience maintenance based on its characteristics. Therefore, the exploration on surface and texture of selected specimen of palm tree is main contributor to this research in finding the self-cleaning characteristics on building envelope materials. The selective specimen will be monitored under Light-microscope and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) based on environmental experiment. The outcome of this exploration will discover the nature mechanism through its nature course and develop the self-cleaning conceptual on building envelop materials to overcome the problems in every building envelope design.

Investment in building maintenance management is an effective strategy to control the quality of building performance and its condition. In most countries, maintenance activities are based on the basic management concept, which includes planning, monitoring, and controlling. Thus, building maintenance management system (BMMS) should be applied to various types of properties to allocate the relevant maintenance procedures to the specific building that requires the implementation of maintenance activities. Ordinarily, residential property is more concerned with the building maintenance management system (BMMS) due to the well-maintained assets and facilities, while also retaining the building aesthetically to provide an opportunity for future property investment. The value of buildings really depends on their quality and current condition, and this also points out that accurate maintenance activities for residential property in Malaysia provide maximum benefit to the building's performance. However, building maintenance management in Malaysia is mostly based on the conventional system (also known as a paper-based report) rather than the modern computerized system, which makes it ideally difficult to determine the root causes. This commonly proposes inaccurate maintenance activities for strata-title residential buildings. The weaknesses of the current procedure may affect the overall building performance, besides, building defects can also become more critical without any remedial actions from the building owners. Thus, this research will aid in identifying the fundamental shortcomings of paper-based conventional systems and investigating how a modern computerized BMMS might cope with these challenges. However, this study will focus on strata title properties in Peninsular Malaysia. The variables were measured and assessed using a mixed-methods approach that included both qualitative and quantitative components. Twelve (12) building experts from public and private entities, including the public works department (PWD), local authority (LA), and Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB), were interviewed using a qualitative technique. The results from semi-structured interviews were analyzed using descriptive and thematic analyses. Then, 125 respondents were given a questionnaire as part of a quantitative approach, and SPSS version 28 was used to examine the results. The findings are expected to highlight the

Contemporary architectural designs acting to increase the aesthetic value of the building’s overall perspective. The complexity of the maintenance works for the building envelope cleanliness becomes challenging in maintenance operations. Biomimicry – innovation inspired by nature, reveals an opportunity to simplify the cleaning process mentioned by infusing the self-cleaning characteristic of palm tree species on the design of building envelope. This research is intentionally to determine of the most ideal building envelope form that utilize the effect of the biomimicry conceptual as self-cleaning maintenance properties by finding the wind velocity to assess the dust flow behaviour. The basic architectural forms that commonly applied by the architects is used as a model to create the building forms in a way to find the physical self-cleaning characteristic by using the palm leaf pattern. By using the Autodesk Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software, this tool is used to simulate the environmental situation and examine the efficiency of the self-cleaning function on different building models. The results are compared among the different models to identify the best building model that fully employ the self-cleaning function using the palm leaf pattern. The finding on self-cleaning properties of architectural forms is potentially developed the solution of sustainable building envelope design for a better functional and free maintenance.

Facilities management in Malaysia has started as early as 1990s during the development of mega projects such as Putrajaya in 1999 [8, 9]. During this period, Malaysia was introduced to an integrated property management and maintenance services known as facilities management. However, its implementation according to the standard practice is still being disputed. The purpose of facilities management standard practices is to provide the facility management profession with a leading reference on facilities management activities and standards. Therefore, the determination of how far the gap in FM current practice is essential to help our FM industry. Thus, the aim of this study is to establish the gap between the current practices and the standard practices and also how far the gap should be satisfied. A set of questionnaire was designed upon literature and previous research done to gather the required information. The study is subjected to FM organizations in private sectors and only the personnel at management level are assessed. There were certified that most of the practices that assessed by means of gap analysis had an acceptable result which the gap between the current practices and the standard practices are not too far.

Setting an effective safety and health management system is crucial in order to reduce problem relating to accident and ill in management organizational. It is involve with multiple level of management and stakeholders who empower the organization to the management in handling the safety and health cases and issues in organizational. It is necessary to prepare a well knowledge about safety and health management systems and preparing the framework for setting a certain scale in measuring its performance in this area. The successful or failure of management does showing the capability of the organization in delivering the responsible to management levels [1]. The problem in safe work issues and practices cause by the management commitment and involvement that create improper safety program and procedures, and this crisis keep continuing till present [2]. This paper describes about key element of safety and health management system and measuring the performance in order to get an effective management system in organization that describes the process in achieving effectiveness in management. The literature review will be conducted through the data collection from research findings and defined the strong character of key element in which focusing on measuring performance. A guide on key element performance in occupational safety and health management system is specifically drawn to prepare for a future research.