Alpin, a key provider of sustainable solutions for the built environment based at Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, UAE, said it has joined hands with UC Berkeley (University of California) to deliver the latest in building evaluation technology and occupant data management in the Middle East region.
 
According to experts, the ever-changing skyline in the Middle East region is hard to keep up with. Architecturally-amazing buildings are designed and built all year round; however in an industry that is so fast paced one often forgets to stop and think about the purpose of these buildings - the comfort and productivity of people, they said.

Whether building occupants are business professionals, students or patients, all humans have the same basic needs; clean air, general maintenance, thermal comfort and cleanliness, to name a few, the experts pointed out.

"While regional buildings may be architecturally exciting from the outside, they often lack a clear focus on the quality of experience for the occupants and therefore most regional buildings perform poorly in terms of thermal comfort, acoustics quality, mold containment and lighting quality, they added.

Over the past six months Alpin's local GCC team worked with Berkeley's world-renowned Centre for the Built Environment (CBE) in California to change this.

The Abu Dhabi-based company's first order of business to bring best practices for occupant-focused operations in the Middle East region was to customise and translate a cost-effective, web-based survey, which is now available in English and Arabic.

The live survey, which is also closely aligned with the Leed (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and Well building certification systems, is focused on: acoustic quality, air quality, cleanliness and maintenance, lighting, furnishings, space layout and thermal comfort, it stated.

"We believe in sustainability for the built environment, and it is for this reason that we were happy to work with Berkeley in creating an innovative tool to help optimise building performance," remarked Jourdan Younis, the managing director of Alpin.

This Occupant Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) survey provides an invaluable source of information for improving the performance of buildings. It takes approximately 10 minutes to complete, and the results are quickly available in a visually appealing format, he stated.

With this information readily available, local building owner/operators will have the ability to optimise buildings and help drive employee productivity, student learning and patient recovery, said the company in a statement.

Not only does this survey allow building operators to receive a pulse as to how buildings are being perceived by their occupants, it also helps inform them as to how well their design updates are working and also provides information as to where to invest in the optimization of their future built assets, it stated.

"We were happy to partner with Alpin to develop a tool which will improve the performance of buildings and we will be offering our CBE partners four complimentary surveys a year," remarked Lindsay Graham of Berkeley.

"This tool is a perfect way for building owners to future-proof their buildings, as they are able to compare their building's performance against the CBE's international database of buildings. Helping owner/operators to gain a better understanding of what design features work and don't within their building portfolios," he added.-TradeArabia News Service