Development of a methodology for the performance improvement of Nigerian office buildings considering bioclimatic design perspectives

Omoragbon, Osamudiamen Meek

Abstract

There is a need to improve the environmental performance of Nigeria’s office buildings due to
new expectations, and the current challenges including energy shortage, increasing
population, changing user needs, and climate change. While several Nigerian cities have
been expanding, existing buildings constitute a significant portion of the building stock.
Improving the performance of existing buildings using a well-known, tested and relatively
straightforward approach of modelling and simulation is more cost-effective than new
construction. In Nigeria, the appropriate building information to facilitate this type of
evaluation is difficult to come by because many building records are often not updated, are
obsolete, deteriorated or buildings are not constructed to their original specifications. Previous
studies that aimed at enhancing a building’s performance in Nigeria hardly stated the
acquisition of the required building data. This study developed a methodology for building
performance improvement of existing buildings following the bioclimatic design initiatives
recommended by Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing for new buildings.
In addition to the significant increase in commercial activities requiring more office buildings
in Benin City, the study region, there is also a dearth of studies on building or energy
performance improvement. Five objectives were set out, which helped to direct the research
while adopting the mixed method research approach and a case study research strategy. In
the initial phase, a combination of web-based and hard-copy questionnaires were completed
by 133 building design professionals in Benin City followed by a complementary semistructured interview of 15 building professionals to investigate the current built environment
practices in the study region. This phase also helped in identifying the appropriate bioclimatic
design characteristics of the buildings necessary for performance improvement and the asbuilt data capture of existing buildings in Nigeria. On-site surveys of the bioclimatic design
features of three office buildings, selected to reflect the common office typology in the study
region followed, utilising diverse surveying means. The data collected at this stage of the
fieldwork were initially used to create digital models while findings from the analysis of all data
collection methods employed in this study helped to inform and develop a suitable
methodology for building performance improvement of existing buildings considering
bioclimatic design perspectives. Operative temperature and solar gains for indoor thermal
comfort were used during evaluation and the developed methodology was trialled using a
prototype model created from the use of a smartphone which showed slight variations in
measurements but no significant impact on thermal comfort. The developed methodology
has great potential for building simulation and evaluation of the thermal performance of
existing buildings to encourage environmental building performance in a developing world.

Citation

Omoragbon, O. M. (2023). Development of a methodology for the performance improvement of Nigerian office buildings considering bioclimatic design perspectives. (Thesis). The University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Oct 19, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 28, 2025
• Award Date: Oct 27, 2023