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Façade material selection criteria for optimising building maintainability

Article · August 2015

DOI: 10.11113/jt.v75.5269

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Jurnal
Full Paper
Teknologi
FAÇADE MATERIAL SELECTION CRITERIA FOR Article history
Received
OPTIMISING BUILDING MAINTAINABILITY 6 April 2015
Received in revised form
Gunavathy Kanniyapana, Izran Sarrazin Mohammadb*, Lenin 12 August 2015
Accepted
Jawahar Nesanc, Abdul Hakim Mohammedb, Shubashini Ganisena
23 August 2015
aPhD Candidates of Facilities Management, Department of Real
*Corresponding author
Estate, Faculty of Geoinformation and Real Estate, Universiti
[email protected]
Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
bCentre for Real Estate Studies, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310

UTM Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia

cInternational Institute for Affordable and Sustainable Housing,

Sirkali, Tamil Nadu, India

Graphical abstract Abstract

Maintainability of building facilities partially relies on the materials selection as their potential to
resist defects from common deterioration, ease maintenance, and minimise maintenance cost
can be improved throughout their designed life. Therefore, it is highly critical that during the
design stage, scores of material options are identified and analysed for their suitability to achieve
maintainability during post construction occupancy. This article identify a set of criteria to
evaluate facade materials as to their potential contribution to post construction maintainability in
built environment. Ten maintainable façade material selection criteria which is durability,
cleanability, material sustainability, compatibility and suitability, health and safety, material
economy, material availability, functional performance, thermal performance and acoustical
had been identified by using NVIVO and content analysis on 40 selected articles. This initial
findings will provide a review on the maintainability attributes that needed during selecting
façade material to ensure successful implementation of design maintainability.

Keywords: Building material, maintainability, design, facade, facility management, NVIVO,

content analysis

Abstrak
Penyelenggaraan fasiliti bangunan adalah sebahagiannya bergantung kepada pemilihan
bahan binaan bangunan sebagai potensi untuk mengelakkan kemerosotan bangunan,
memudahkan penyenggaraan bangunan dan mengurangkan kos penyelenggaraan
sepanjang hayat bangunan. Oleh itu, ia adalah sangat penting bahawa dalam peringkat reka
bentuk, skor pilihan bahan bangunan yang telah dikenal pasti dan dianalisis untuk kesesuaian
bahan tersebut untuk mencapai kemudahan penyelenggaraan semasa bangunan tersebut
dihuni. Artikel ini mengenalpasti satu set kriteria untuk menilai bahan-bahan binaan fasad
supaya berpotensi untuk memudahkan penyelenggaraan selepas bangunan dibina. Sepuluh
kriteria untuk pemilihan bahan binaan fasad yang boleh diselenggara iaitu ketahanan,
keupayaan bersih, bahan binaan berkelanjutan, kesesuaian, kesihatan dan keselamatan,
ekonomi bahan binaan, ketersediaan bahan binaan, fungsi dan akustik telah dikenalpasti
dengan menggunakan NVIVO dan analisis kandungan terhadap 40 artikel terpilih. Hasil
penemuan awal ini akan menyediakan kajian mengenai sifat-sifat kebolehsenggaraan yang
diperlukan semasa memilih bahan binaan fasad bagi memastikan kejayaan pelaksanaan
penyelenggaraan dalam reka bentuk.

Kata kunci: Bahan binaan bangunan, penyelenggaraan, reka bentuk, fasad, pengurusan fasiliti,
NVIVO, analisis kandungan
© 2015 Penerbit UTM Press. All rights reserved

75:10 (2015) 17–25 | www.jurnalteknologi.utm.my | eISSN 2180–3722 |

18 Izran Sarrazin Mohammad et al. / Jurnal Teknologi (Sciences & Engineering) 75:10 (2015) 17–25

1.0 INTRODUCTION effective maintenance would only be met when

design team, maintenance team, facilities manager
The issue of building maintainability is considered and clients knew how components and building
highly critical in recent days as they largely influence elements performed and deteriorates over the
durability of building facilities. Maintainability is a lifetime [6]. El-Haram and Horner supported the
wider scope where it is not only addresses statement of Holmes and Flanagan and
reparability but also increases ease of restoring a recommended the conceptualisation of whole life
defective item to its same function as in design costing at the design stage of new buildings and
stage. Therefore, maintainability should be develop current maintenance strategies [7]. Next,
considered right from the early stage of design and Huang presented a decision-support tool to rank the
construction. Maintainability is defined as ‘the ability maintenance strategies for facade from an
of an item, under conditions of use, to be retained in economic standpoint [8]. This analytical tool has
or restored to a state in which it can perform its incorporated a deterioration model and LCC
required functions, when maintenance is performed analysis. Layzell discussed the failure modes and
under stated conditions and using prescribed causes of cladding failure in general and mostly
procedures and resources’ [1]. Furthermore, focused on water tightness of cladding [9].
maintainability of buildings can be defined as Furthermore Chew has study and compiled common
attaining the optimum performance throughout the facade failures and causes of the facade failure [10].
lifespan of a building within a minimum life cycle cost Layzell and Chew did not emphasise and suggest the
[2]. To make right decisions, building consultants specific way of preventing the failures. However, this
need to evaluate and select suitable building gap has been bridge by Kang who studied on the
material to optimize building maintainability. common facade failures, causes of the facade
Building material plays an important role throughout failure and set benchmarks for design, construction
the life cycle of a building. Selection of materials for and maintenance practices for façade system [11].
constructing the building is one of the most important He also included the intangible performance during
design decisions in the early phase. Building materials the assessment of facade.
or subsystems consist of civil-architectural and From the past studies, it can be concluded that
mechanical-electrical system. Civil-architectural there are insufficient attention given to the
system comprises basement, facade, wet area and evaluation and selection of facade system during
roof. Mechanical-electrical system consists of design stage. The past studies mostly concentrate on
sanitary-plumbing; elevator; HVAC/ heating, the existing facade system which the failure already
ventilation, air-conditioning; electrical and fire exist. However, there are some studies that
protection. Based on previous study, civil- emphasise on facade system selection but using
architectural subsystems have higher emphasise on simple criteria. This clearly indicates that the
design compared to M&E subsystems and facade aforesaid facade material selection criteria were so
was selected as the most important contributing civil- generic, which largely ignore the maintainability
architectural system in maintainability [3]. features. This aspect is the most significant factor that
The building façade is an important element of a has been identified in previous research that causing
building’s exterior envelope that is certainly the facade to be failure in post occupancy.
subjected to the worsening effects from weathering Research on this element is highly desirable to
agents such as rainfall, ultra-violet emission, oxygen complement the present trend of sustainable
and heat. The maintenance of facades has become development.
very expensive caused by numerous issues such as The materials selection process should yield
unusual massing, height, space constraint and exotic desirable materials, which have the potential to resist
finishes [4]. From the past researches that carried out defects from common deterioration and maintain
with 59 building managers, it is revealed that 34% of the building to achieve their proposed function
facades defects were caused by design faulty, throughout their life span. Facades that is able to
wrong material selection was accounted for 24%, satisfy aesthetical and functional performance
19% due to construction erroneous, environment was necessities at minimum intervals for cleaning and
accounted for 16% and defects due to maintenance inspections for defects can be considered as
practices are around 7%. Generally, design and “maintainable” [10, 12]. Thus, the material
material have contributed more to the facades component in facade design plays an important role
deficiencies. in maintainability since a material that is suitable with
Empirical researches validates that studies on its adjoining materials and needs little maintenance
facade system have established within the past 35 during its lifespan will acquire a minimum
years. Researches on consideration of maintenance maintenance cost [10, 12].
requirement right from the selecting material or This article identify a set of criteria to evaluate
building subsystems are rare. Based on past 35 years facade materials as to their potential contribution to
studies, Holmes argued that economy factors should post construction maintainability in built environment.
be considered during selecting the facade system
[5]. Further Flanagan cited in the BPG Building Fabric
Component Life Manual, that the demands of cost-
19 Izran Sarrazin Mohammad et al. / Jurnal Teknologi (Sciences & Engineering) 75:10 (2015) 17–25

2.0 ISSUES OF FAÇADE MATERIAL SELECTION proven to function well in one location or country,
IN RESPECT TO POST CONSTRUCTION might not function well in another location caused
MAINTAINABILITY OF BUILDINGS by changes in climatic circumstances. Ineffective
designs identify materials in common without
Considering suitability of facade materials during the exclusive specifications. This may allow the
design stage of a building ensures minimisation of contractor to offer materials which fulfil only the
maintenance requirements in the future. This means general guidelines, where it will not serve the work
that the facade system is easy to maintain at less appropriately.
time, less cost and with less effort. Unfortunately, It is important for designers to study the
architects and designers often overlook this most specifications, information and data about the
important factor, which has the potential to carry out performance of materials. However, such an effort
future maintenance tasks. Building maintainability would be complicated if there is a lack of knowledge
and maintenance costs have been rather ignored at of the functions of the materials [13]. It is vital that
the design and construction phases resulting in designers should identify the ineffectiveness of
difficulties and costly in maintaining buildings [13]. It materials and systems to function as preferred.
was revealed that many countries were experiencing Further, Silva explains that the selection of materials,
enormous maintenance workloads throughout the in a certain location, is affected by the climate,
post construction phase; increasing the problems in availability, building technique and economy [13].
maintenance. The main causes for such Thus, the material availability must be considered at
circumstances are varied from inadequate design the construction phase and when replacements are
and planning with respect to maintainability at the required.
initial design phase, inefficient maintenance planning The most significant cause that influences badly the
at the post construction phase and ineffective process of selecting materials is unsystematic and not
construction techniques during the construction up-to-date information [17]. It is proven that the
phase of a building [14]. Therefore, maintainability quality assurance mechanism is not working
today is considered as an important aspect that effectively if the reliability and accuracy of some
should be considered right from the early phase of data specified on the catalogues and brochures is
design and construction. not audited by any laboratory or institute [17].
The costs, incurred from the maintainability issues, Therefore, it is essential to document the
have caused significant problems in many countries performances of various types of materials in order to
around the world. In some revealed circumstances, improve or prevent using materials which have been
the building maintenance costs have reached observed not to function satisfactorily [16]. Such data
around 50% of their original construction cost [14]. A would be beneficial when approximating the long
defective façade system would have a large term cost of a specific material. It is worth stating that
financial impact on the building’s total maintenance a material with a high initial cost, but requiring little or
cost. The expenditure on maintenance work is nearly no maintenance for a long period, could be more
50% of total construction output in UK [10, 12]. appropriate than one which has a low initial cost but
Maintenance costs analysis in buildings having life would require regular maintenance work.
less than 25 years old unveiled fair wear and tear at Material manual is a benchmark that needs to be
56%, design specification errors at 20%, and repairs utilised. It must include detailed maintainability
caused by defective materials at 12.5%; the guidelines for effective material selection process to
remaining 11.5 per cent was specific to additional make sure that the decisions influencing
causes [15]. The cost of rehabilitating a building maintenance budgets are prepared at the
could be as high as new construction [16]. beginning of design phase [13]. Material manual
An important issue to be considered in achieving without suitable technology wouldn’t improve
design maintainability churning the design stage of a maintainability [18].
building project is selecting suitable building Research on non-monetary methods has been
materials. The use of defective and poor quality conducted to search for alternate methods so that
materials and/or design details are common material selection for the maintainability potentials
incidents in numerous building projects, creating can be determined and analysed in an appropriate
major defects during in post construction service. manner. Ikpo explained how maintainability analysis
Consequently, this has led to short service lives of could be undertaken before construction; however,
many buildings. Such circumstances seek additional it does not emphasise on the common indices [18]. A
maintenance as caused by the inadequacies in the gap therefore exists between material selection and
design and quality of construction [16]. the integration of maintainability principles in the
During the design phase, the designer should decision-making process. This article focuses on
always identify materials that can withstand current identifying criteria for selecting maintainable facade
climate conditions. Using facility harshly, aggressive materials.
environmental and climate circumstances lead to
early deterioration to building materials [15].
Designers should investigate the features of the
materials before they specify them. A material,
20 Izran Sarrazin Mohammad et al. / Jurnal Teknologi (Sciences & Engineering) 75:10 (2015) 17–25

3.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY “building design”. The keywords search was carried
out in major databases subscribed by the UTM library:
This article is precisely assigned to search and review Sage Journals, Emerald, Scopus, ScienceDirect,
the literature on the criteria for selecting Elsevier, Wiley, Taylor & Francis and Springer. A total
maintainable façade materials. The primary data of 40 qualitative research articles related to
was produced through qualitative content analysis. maintainable façade material selection were
Content analysis is a systematic and objective means identified through these processes. Therefore, the 40
of describing and quantifying phenomena [19-21]. It articles are referred as the ‘primary’ set of articles.
is also known as a method of analysing documents. NVIVO 9.0 software was employed to code and
Content analysis allows the researcher to test analyse the literature in a single repository and this
theoretical issues to enhance understanding of the software had been effectively used in this way by
data. Through content analysis, it is possible to filter few authors previously [22-23]. A comprehensive rule
words into fewer content related categories. of conduct was developed to store, code and
Qualitative content analysis was used for reviewing analyse the extracted papers in the NVIVO
published articles related to maintainable façade database. All 40 articles were saved and arranged
material’s criteria. Based on the method used by [22- as ‘documents’ and ‘nodes’. The maintainable
24], a three stage method was carried out to extract, façade material selection criteria were plotted at a
analyse and report the literature-based findings. The high level in main tree-level nodes in NVIVO. A tree-
first stage comprised identifying the articles to be level node is a logical location within NVIVO, where
included in this review. The second stage comprised during the coding process; one can capture and
designing and executing detailed rules of conduct store content and ideas that are logically grouped
that prescribed how to capture and analyse the together. The tree-level node represents a logical
literature. The third stage involved synthesising the location within NVIVO. This allows one to plot and
analysed details and developing the research store the content that are logically grouped
findings. In identifying the articles to be included in together, during the coding process. Based on the
this review, leading construction and building rule of conduct, each article was manually scanned
materials journals, academic conferences and books in NVIVO to inductively identify the maintainable
were considered. The construction and building façade material selection criteria. The coding
materials journals included in the search consists of process was carried out by mapping relevant
International Journals on Architectural Science, statements to the nodes. Any suggestion of a benefit
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, either implicit or explicit was mapped to the node.
Journal of Architectural Engineering, Construction The result from the first analysis (the coded content)
Management and Economics, Structural Survey, was examined to inductively derive actual
Building and Environment, Journal of Financial maintainable façade material selection criteria. To
Management of Property and Construction, Journal group the statements that described similar criteria,
of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, Construction subfolders were created. This process headed to the
and Building Material, Construction and Architectural identification of a set of maintainable façade
Management, Architectural Science Review, Journal material selection criteria from the coded literature.
of Building Appraisal, International Journal of Project The research findings were analysed and interpreted
Management and Journal of Strategic Property in the following section.
Management. The literature sample comprises peer-
reviewed papers; journals, books and proceedings
from academic conferences on criteria for 4.0 DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
maintainable façade material selection, covering
the thirty five-year-period from 1977 to 2012. Content analysis was carried out to identify the
Literature sample was collected by conducting a maintainable façade material selection criteria.
literature search according to relevant keywords Table 1 presents the criteria identified through this
such as “building maintainability”, “façade material”, effort.
“building material”, “building maintenance” and
21 Izran Sarrazin Mohammad et al. / Jurnal Teknologi (Sciences & Engineering) 75:10 (2015) 17–25

Table 1 Summary of results from the content analysis

No. Maintainable Façade Number of Coding Number of Sources List of Sources
Material Selection Criteria References
1. Durability 12 7 2, 10, 12, 14, 16, 26, 47
2. Cleanability 3 3 10, 12, 47
3. Material Sustainability 6 3 2, 47, 50
4. Compatibility and Suitability 8 5 10, 12, 14, 16, 29
5. Health and Safety 7 4 16, 46, 49, 50
6. Materials Economy 18 6 12, 13, 16, 46, 48, 50
7. Material Availability 5 3 13, 16, 47
8. Functional Performance 6 5 10, 12, 14, 15, 28
9. Thermal Performance 12 12 12, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41,
42, 43
10. Acoustical 9 9 33, 34, 35, 38, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45

5.0 DISCUSSION

There are 10 maintainable façade material selection Cleanability: Cleanability is the capability of the
criteria identified from this study. Figure 1 shows 10 building to be easily dirt-free easily and/or without
maintainable façade material selection criteria. The damage.
criteria are briefly discussed in the following
subsections. 5.3 Material Sustainability

5.1 Durability Sustainable material addresses energy conservation

in manufacturing and performance of the material,
The durability of façade materials is the capability of reduces health hazards to all users, reduces global
a material to perform its necessary functions and it’s environmental hazards, and it is recyclable [27]. The
doesn’t require to be replaced with a new material designer should always identify materials that are
throughout its life span [25]. These criteria play a able to tolerate local weather conditions. An early
significant role in selection of maintainable façade deterioration of materials is caused by aggressive
materials since durable materials require less environmental and weather conditions [15]. Based
maintenance during its lifespan and consequently on previous research, sustainable material is one of
will acquire a minimum maintenance cost [10, 12]. the most important fundamental parameters in
Hence, the durability of materials is critical criteria to controlling the maintainability of building [2]. Hence,
be considered during the selection of facade it is obviously shown that the sustainability criteria is
materials to enhance the building maintainability [2, an important criteria to select facade material in
10, 12, 14, 16, 26, 47]. Durability is defined as follows: order to optimise building maintainability [2, 47, 50].
Durability: Durability is the capability of buildings Sustainability with respect to use of materials is
and their elements to execute their necessary defined as follows:
functions throughout their life cycle with minimal Material Sustainability: Material sustainability can be
regular maintenance work. described as those materials that are drawn from
renewable sources that do not adversely affect the
5.2 Cleanability natural environment, in terms of both the materials
themselves and their immediate surroundings.
The cleanability of material is the ability to clean
easily the materials or its adjacent components so 5.4 Compatibility and Suitability
that it will be able to meet aesthetical and functional
performance requirements [26]. The cleanability Compatibility and suitability of material is any
criteria emphasise the frequency and the method of material that can integrate with its adjacent
cleaning and maintenance of different type of materials with less modification and requires less
materials which attribute to longer life span of a maintenance throughout its lifespan. Technology
building [14]. Hence, the greater the maintainability, provides solutions for the difficulties faced in
the lower the cleaning required to keep the material combining compatible and incompatible materials in
functional [47]. Cleanability is one of the significant building design [18]. The designer needs to consider
criteria that must be evaluated when selecting material properties and design guideline before
façade materials [10, 12, 47]. Cleanability is defined selecting suitable materials in building design [28].
as follows: The unsuitability and incompatibility of materials have
posed great maintenance problems and
22 Izran Sarrazin Mohammad et al. / Jurnal Teknologi (Sciences & Engineering) 75:10 (2015) 17–25

subsequently increase the maintenance costs [10, 12, the materials would incur in the long run in achieving
48]. Therefore, optimum maintainability can be their functional performance.
achieved through the combination of material
components with respect to compatibility and 5.7 Material Availability
suitability to fulfil its intended functions [29]. Hence,
compatibility and suitability of materials are the Material availability is a material that is available
critical criteria in selecting facade materials [10, 12, locally and easy to obtain during repair and
14, 16, 29]. The criteria, compatibility and suitability replacement work. Material availability may
are defined as follows: influence the decisions being made on facade
Compatibility and Suitability: Compatibility and material selections because long delivery of material
suitability can be defined as ability of materials to may cause the project to hold up and increase the
integrate orderly and efficiently with other materials costs. Locally available materials are more easily to
in a system with less modifications or conversions. get and cheaper than materials procured from long
distance. The aforesaid discussion indicates that the
5.5 Health and Safety availability criteria must be considered during the
selection of facade materials [13, 16, 47]. Availability
Health and safety are two main critical issues in is defined as follows:
quantifying and grading the maintainability Material Availability: Material availability can be
parameters in the facade material selection process defined as a measure of the percentage of the total
[49]. However, nowadays, residential buildings inventory of a material which is operationally
contain a large amount of heavy metals and capable of performing an assigned mission at an
chemicals that cause several health related indefinite random point in time.
problems such as nose and throat irritation, asthma,
headaches, nausea, cancer and immune system 5.8 Functional Performance
suppression [30]. A research conducted in Britain
noted that relative humidity of indoor air must be Functional performance of material is the behaviour
between 40% and 60% and this is the most suitable of materials to perform up to the best of their
range for human health purpose. If the relative capability with minimum defects. It is necessary to
humidity is below 40%, it should be considered as document the performances of various materials so
‘sick buildings’ syndrome [30]. Based on the above as to enhance or avoid using materials that are
discussion, health and safety criteria must be taken found not performing satisfactorily [16]. However,
into consideration during the facade material selecting materials with best performances might not
selection process (16, 46, 49, 50]. The ‘health and essentially resulting in the most effective building,
safety’ is defined as follows: since the efficiency of such constructions rely on how
Health and Safety: Health and safety aspects of the materials are placed together to form a building
facade materials can be described as the amount [16]. On the other hand, Soronis, mentioned that
and combination of ingredients in a material that is most maintainability failures rely on the actual fact
known not to cause any injury, illness, disease, that knowledge of the performance of certain
damage or pharmacological effect in human elements or materials is merely available in the
beings. literature [46]. In reality, designers don't have the time
needed to review these documents. It is vital that the
5.6 Material Economy professionals within the field of maintainability assist
designers by providing information on the behaviour
Material economy is the materials which give the of materials and on their interaction with the
maximum performance with minimum initial cost and surroundings. Thus, inspection of defects of facade
life costs of materials. According to Chew, most of material that are capable to meet functional
the designers and clients will consider the initial cost performance at regular intervals could also be
to specify the economic acceptability of the project; considered as “maintainable” [10, 12, 47]. Based on
however, it has been proved that the initial cost may the foregoing discussion, it is observed that functional
not be the most economical solution as low cost performance criteria are important criteria that need
materials often require more frequent maintenance to be considered during the facade material
[10, 12, 48]. On the other hand, the economic selection process [10, 12, 14, 15, 28]. ‘Functional
considerations must be included in the initial cost of performance’ is defined as follows:
purchase and the life costs of materials to get more Functional Performance: Functional performance is
reasonable value. Materials that give the maximum the effective performance of the materials to the
performance with minimum cost can be determined best of their abilities and in efficient manner with
by short listing them. It is obvious that, materials minimum downtime of repair and reduced
economics criteria must be considered during the maintenance costs.
material selection process (12, 13, 16, 46, 48, 5].
Materials economy is defined as follows:
Material Economy: Materials economy can be
defined as minimal usage of resources and costs that
23 Izran Sarrazin Mohammad et al. / Jurnal Teknologi (Sciences & Engineering) 75:10 (2015) 17–25

5.9 Thermal Performance

Thermal properties of facade system related to a

specific material in spite of its dimensions and
location, and properties that relate to the material in
a specified design as it is used in a building. During
tropics, the temperature degrees are greater and
façade are exposed to higher heat loadings and
thermal shocks. Consequently, their overall
performance and level of deterioration may differ
Maintainable Façade
tremendously under the temperate circumstances
Material Selection Criteria
[10, 12]. The purpose of thermal design of facades is
to control and handle heat gain and heat loss. Due
to this fact, the facades need to be carefully
designed to reduce solar heat gains [31]. Enhancing
thermal performance of facades is vital to minimise
energy consumption in building, better thermal
resistance, reduce thermal bridges and improve the
air tightness [32]. Based on the foregoing discussion, it
is observed that thermal performance criteria are
important criteria that need to be considered during
the facade material selection process [12, 33, 34, 35, Figure 1 Maintainable façade material selection criteria
36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43]. ‘Thermal performance’ is
defined as follows:
Thermal Performance: Thermal Performance
describes how well a structure reacts to changes in 6.0 CONCLUSION
external temperature during the daily and seasonal
cycles. The use of materials for achieving future
maintainability depends on selecting materials which
5.10 Acoustical have the potential to resist defects from common
deterioration so that they would continue to achieve
The recent environmental sound pollution doubts the their potential function throughout their lifespan.
development in construction of building in noisy Selection of facade materials for a building
urban spots. It is recommended that acoustic construction is one of the most important design
requirements have grown to be more widespread in decisions in the early phase. Partially, the building
the design of building envelopes. Noise defects arise from inappropriate selection of
inconvenience by road traffic in urbanized areas is a materials with respect to maintainability during the
major problem. The acoustical façade load that design stage. It is vital to know the preventive
concern the sound pressure level at the outside of measures to be taken to improve maintainability of
the building and the façade insulation are the the buildings. This article has presented the results of
fundamental key to assess the interior sound pressure the qualitative content analysis on the criteria for
levels. Façade sound insulation could be improved selecting maintainable facade materials during the
by using high performance elements or by design phase from a widespread literature review.
customizing the shape of the façade. The aforesaid The findings in this paper suggest that Durability’,
discussion indicates that the acoustical criteria must ‘Material Economy’ and ‘Thermal Performance’ are
be considered during the selection of facade the significant criteria that demand attention for the
materials (33, 34, 35, 38, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45]. Acoustical successful selection of maintainable façade material
is defined as follows: for optimising building maintainability. The failure of
Acoustical: Acoustical façade defined as a façade incorporating maintainability attributes in façade
that designed to absorb or control exterior sound. material selection in the past had led to various
The final finding is illustrated in the following diagram. maintenance problem in post occupancy stage and
this may cease to persist if the maintainable façade
material selection criteria are considered in future
building projects.
24 Izran Sarrazin Mohammad et al. / Jurnal Teknologi (Sciences & Engineering) 75:10 (2015) 17–25

Acknowledgement [22] Neo, B. W., Izran, S.M., Maizan, B., Nurul, N. Z., Abdul, Q. N.
2015. Critical Success Factors for Post Occupancy
Evaluation of Building Performance: A Literature Analysis.
The authors would like to express their sincere Jurnal Teknologi (Sciences & Engineering). 74(2): 41-49.
appreciation to Faculty of Geoinformation and Real [23] Miskon, Suraya, Bandara, Wasana, Gable, Guy G., and
Estate, University Technology Malaysia. Fielt, Erwin. 2011. Success and Failure Factors of Shared
Services: An IS Literature Analysis. In Osman, Abu, Alias,
Rose Alinda, and Manaf, Azizah Abd (Eds.). Proceedings
of the 2011 International Conference on Research and
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