Design Pre-thesis 3 | Selection: Environmental

Research demonstrates that open office layout and cubicles-based arrangement can contribute to stress working environment. But, a few changes in the office furniture and infrastructure can reverse this effect, reduce stress and enhance the motivation among the employees. Malaysians work an average of 15 hours more than their contracted hours each week, surpassing Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia, but has one of the highest percentages of productivity loss. A good-designed office can automatically generate the feel-good factor while working and reduce working stress level.

The aim of this study is on how to promote the usage of Atrium space in office building while having a constraint of tropical hot and humid climate solar heat gain factor when allowing daylighting into the building as the solution to reduce stress working environment. ATRIUM is a large open air or skylight covered space surrounded by a building. Atriums are considered the heart of buildings. Not only the main spaces where social activities happen, people gather/socialise but also connect to the nature (sun/ green spaces) to meliorate the indoor environment/ levels of comfort of the buildings.

The project is an office building for Tujuan Gemilang Sdn Bhd Headquaters located at Jalan Chendana, Kampung Baharu, Kuala Lumpur to replace the current headquarters at PJ Trade Centre, Petaling Jaya. The main concept for the office building is open + green concept to maximise daylighting harvesting via Atrium space. Tujuan Gemilang previous project was famous for its passive design approach on Daylighting harvesting + Natural Ventilation to promote low building Energy Consumption. This project aimed to minimize the usage of artificial lighting during the day while minimizing the solar heat gain from the sunlight via Atrium space.