INTEGRATION OF FLEXIBLE DESIGN TECHNIQUES IN THE DESIGN OF A MIXED-USE BUILDING TOWARDS ADDRESSING DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES IN ABUJA

Abstract

As the needs of owners and residents change, buildings often need to be refurbished, resulting in high costs during construction, operation and maintenance with loss of functional use of the building. Most new building projects are focused on a specific program for which they are perfectly meant for. However, in this era of economically challenging times we need buildings that can easily adapt to changes in the market in order to prolong their durability. Combining living and working gives a lot of planning problems because, both the two functions complement one another in the use of qualities spaces. In addition, the usual cycle of building and demolishing buildings is now becoming a big problem which needs strategic solutions. Hence. this study develops a systematic approach to study and analyze the properties of expected changes in the facility constructed and specific design strategies that may increase significantly the flexibility or ability to adapt to changes in the building. Therefore, three types of changes to the building are in its function, the capacity of the system, and the environment and flow of people in and around the building. These design strategies can provide specific means to change the interactions between the functions, systems and environment which will effectively and efficiently compensate for changes during refurbishment, later. It was recommended that these design strategies will increase the initial value of construction costs average less than 2%, usually reducing the original construction time.