CMA433 Environmental Science & Building Services Engineering Assignment Brief 2025

A. BACKGROUND

Energy consumption in commercial, governmental and industrial buildings is increasing and continues to escalate. As a developing country, Malaysia faced rapid urbanization due to population growth and heavy migration from rural areas to cities which raised the need for economic development, resulting in rising demand more than ever. Guidelines for conserving energy in buildings have become more critical now, encouraging the growth of sustainability concerns in Malaysia. However, the urgency has been given to commercial, governmental and industrial buildings.

Malaysia faced an escalating level of urbanization from 26.8% in 1970 to about 76.6% in 2020 and it is expected to reach 88% by 2050 (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2020). In the spark of the United Nations Sustainable Summit, Malaysia pledged to commit to and support the Sustainable Development agenda. However, there are persisting challenges in combating climate change due to energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions which have become the main concern as a developing country. The industry and commercial sectors consumed Malaysia’s total electricity consumption at 49.4% and 28.8% respectively (Energy Commission, 2022). In typical Malaysian homes, an increase in energy usage is forecasted to mainly result from heating and cooling spaces in particular air-conditioning and refrigerators, followed by lighting features (Malaysia Green Building Council, 2020). Moreover, as a builder gets older, more energy is consumed to operate the building which eventually leads to excessive building energy consumption 

Cities are responsible for major global CO2 emissions, resulting from industrial and transportation systems that utilize fossil fuel heavily for energy consumption, and infrastructure constructed with carbon-intensive materials. Cities occupy 2% of total land but contributed to 70% of global GHG emissions, 60% of global energy consumption and 70% of global waste (Ministry of Environment and Water (KASA), 2016). Dasgupta, Lall & Wheeler (2022) highlight the World Bank’s latest Climate Change Action Plan (2021-2025) which emphasizes city systems as one of five key systems that generate the most GHG emissions and sustain huge adaptation challenges, which brought forward the importance of cities as carbon sinking tool. As a developing country, facing the escalating urban population, cities in Malaysia are facing challenges in decarbonization efforts and  becoming more accountable for GHG emissions urging stipulated actions to be taken by the stakeholders. National commitment towards sustainable development in lessening carbon emissions and reducing energy consumption can be classified into three levels of administration structure of Malaysia that are: national, federal/state, and local level.

Kuala Lumpur City Hall is the local government of the Malaysian capital city, comprised of major commercial centres, headquarters of multinational corporations and mega shopping building complexes. According to KLCH (2018), about 80% of the commercial and residential space supply in KL consists of existing buildings. With the city’s rapid GDP growth, the total GHG emission from the building sector will rise about three times by 2030. Therefore, countermeasures are urgently needed for both the new and existing buildings. Buildings contributed to 49% of total Kuala Lumpur’s GHG emissions where 10,329 ktCO2 was generated from commercial buildings and 2,152 ktCO2 from residential buildings, respectively.

Putrajaya Corporation is the local authority for the city of Putrajaya, committed to its efforts towards realizing the vision of Pioneer Township in Green Technology. In 2007, total GHG emissions were estimated at 664 ktCO2eq with which the highest emissions being from the government office, followed by the transportation sector. The GHG emissions from the commercial sector are expected to increase 7.5 times in the case where no countermeasures were taken immediately. This answers the focus of the government in targeting to reduce the energy consumption of government offices at the government administration centre city of Putrajaya. With that, the developers in Putrajaya have been actively seeking to attain green building certification for their buildings through the design of new construction. Currently, there are six green buildings; five of them are non- residential new construction, while another one is a non-residential existing building. Putrajaya Corporation aims to reduce energy consumption in buildings since the sector contributes 72% of total CO2 emissions in the city.

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B) PROJECT BRIEF

By identifying any commercial complexes, choose ONE PROJECT CASE that fulfils the requirements of the green building for non-residential types of development, e.g. building with an assessment for GBI, government offices and commercial buildings to utilise centralized Gas District Cooling (GDC). 

THE STUDY OF THE BUILDING CASE MUST INCLUDE:

1. The implementation of sustainable design strategies, usage of EE and RE building technologies
2. Monitoring and management of green buildings among new construction, commercial and existing buildings.
3. Encourage Passive and Active Design which requires the implementation of energy efficiency measures in buildings 
4. Encourage energy efficiency measures among all stakeholders; residents through basic measures, commercial & industrial, e.g. through lighting fixtures and more effective motors

The output of this task consists of a set of building case study Proposals, content development and storyboard of the final presentation and an integrated creative video submission.

PHASE 1: BUILDING CASE STUDY PROPOSAL – 20%

Building case study proposal format guidelines are as follows:

1. PROJECT TITLE
2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY iii. BACKGROUND
3. OBJECTIVE
4. PROJECT BRIEF
5. PROJECT CONTENT
6. CONCLUSION

The students must address the followings:

1. Geographic and demographic
2. Design and construction
3. Space/units allocation
4. Building material/fabric identification
5. Sustainable design strategies
6. Passive and Active Design with energy efficiency measures

PHASE 2: CONTENT DEVELOPMENT AND STORYBOARD SUBMISSION – 30%

From the above PHASE 1 information, the students must further explain the building explain environmental control measures to identify suitable basic building services installation and operation. These must be evolved from understanding fundamental principles, installation and operations of green/intelligent building and services engineering relating to the built environment. All environmental and building systems are only referred to your BUILDING CASE.

In this phase, students are required to produce and submit the content development and storyboard that includes details explanations and meets the requirements of the study which are:

1. To determine/comment on the indoor environmental performance which includes; thermal comfort, indoor air quality and lighting performance. This can be achieved by conducting a measurement/interview/questionnaire and other means of data collection methods.
2. Apart from that, students must also identify the significance of the green/intelligent/smart features installed to facilitate better Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) in the building.
3. Lastly, students need to discover the barriers or challenges in implementing those environmental performance criteria and services engineering to the building case.

As a guideline, the followings are criteria of content development that can be applied to your submission:

1. Planning Clear storyboard outline. Content developed to meet the requirements. Background and text work well together.
2. Concept – The choice of presentation application software. Effective use of technology/multimedia demonstrated. Provide suitable animation with regard to the contents.
3. Organization – The information provided is logical and in an interesting sequence. The layout of the slides provides a good direction for the study. iv. Ideas and Content – Informative, well-organized, interesting and relevant to the study.
4. Presentation – Confidently create the works. Multimedia adds to the main purpose. Diagrams, images, videos, and sound in the presentation work well.

PHASE 3: INTEGRATED CREATIVE VIDEO SUBMISSION -50%

Students work together to create a video that explains a specific topic on ENERGY EFFICIENT FOR COMPLEX BUILDING IN THE URBAN AREA of the Building Environment System courses. The analysis must be presented in the form of CREATIVE VIDEO MAKING to address the BUILDING CASE sequence of sustainable building systems implementation, method of operation, expected savings and benefits.

Students must plan the concept of their project, develop a script/storyboard, and create their video in a logical format which communicates their point. Video projects may include interviewing a professional/personnel of the building/on-site measurements results and analysis of their building case. Successful presentations include appropriate content such as photographs, video, music, animation, graphs, and other visual aids. Each submission must be accompanied by a transcript of the finished video. Team Teachings are responsible for obtaining student photo/video releases and including them with their submission.