Users' Perception of Comfort Experienced in Academic Buildings of Selected Universities in Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

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.