The influence of architectural form on the subsequent running costs of office buildings in the Central Business District of Nairobi-Kenya

Abstract

This is a study of form of office buildings in relation to their subsequent running costs in an urban setting. The key issue in this study is how the form perceived at the planning stage of the building facilitates the after-care of the building once constructed. The hypothesis of this study is that architectural form has an influence on the subsequent running costs of office buildings. The literature review has established twenty three main form parameters that influence subsequent running costs. In this' regard, the existing and documented or implied relationships between these form parameters and the subsequent running costs (or maintenance costs which is part of running costs) have been documented. These form parameters have been broken down into fourteen quantitative variables and twenty qualitative variables for purposes of data collection and analysis. This assisted to cover form of office buildings comprehensively. Eventually, these thirty four independent variables-are regressed against the annual mean subsequent running cost per square metre; the dependent variable. The analysis of the .data collected has revealed fundamental issues that would be beneficial to the building industry. These include the establishment of the proportions of the subsequent running costs for various aspects that require running in office buildings. At the same time, it has also been established that eight out of the above thirty four variables explain about 65.830 percent of the variation in the annual mean subsequent running cost per square metre. The multiple regression cost model has been used to establish a relationship between these independent variables and the subsequent running cost. This relationship has been found to be significant at 95 degrees confidence level. The study has concluded that a relationship exists between subsequent running cost of office buildings and archi tectural form parameters and hence form. At the same time, appropriate architectural form parameters have been recommended so as to minimize subsequent running costs. It is also hoped that, this study will heighten the above awareness to the building industry especially to those groups of people that play a key role in the design of office buildings to facilitate the creation of less costly designs with regard to running, especially in third world countries that to a large extent lack finances for maintenance and running purposes