Abstract:
In the modern world, many people spend large portion of their time in built environments.
Accordingly, significance of built environments’ performance is increasing over past two decades. It
draws the attention towards the concept of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) to determine how well
built environments are performing as IEQ performance directly affects occupants’ health, comfort,
satisfaction and ultimately for a productive work environment. Moreover, IEQ concept can be
considered as an integral part of total building performance approach.
Today in Sri Lankan industrial sector, especially apparel manufacturing sector grows upward in
speedily. For this rapidly development, performance of the built environment is vital as it is having
direct relationship with occupants’ productivity. At the present, various approaches to evaluate IEQ
performance has being developed. However, it is evident that there is no holistic approach. Similarly
in Sri Lanka, there is no comprehensive framework applied in industrial buildings to evaluate IEQ
performance. This necessitates the important of developing a holistic IEQ evaluation approach which
would greatly benefit to the industrial sector.
Survey methodology is used in the research and RII is employed as a data analysing tool to validate
the IEQ indicators which have been identified in literature review and modified in preliminary survey.
Further, it is established the most significant indicators based on their importance towards IEQ
performance in apparel industry buildings with AHP tool. The developed framework comprised with
four main IEQ indicators as thermal comfort, indoor air quality, acoustic quality and lighting quality.
This framework focused on holistic approach to measure IEQ performance which will allow
acceptable built environment while processing continuous improvements.
