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Dr Devindi Geekiyanage's Qualifications (4)

PGCAP
Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE)

Status Complete
Years 2025
Awarding Institution - The University of Salford

PhD in Disaster Management
Doctor of Philosophy

Status Complete
Part Time No
Years 2019 - 2023
Project Title A Holistic Approach for Fostering Community Engagement in The Decision-Making of Risk-Sensitive Urban Planning and Development
Project Description In the face of increasing extreme climate events, communities are often excluded from decision-making in urban planning, despite their tacit knowledge and experience in disaster response. This marginalisation poses a significant challenge in creating safe, resilient, and equitable cities (SDG 11). To address this, there is an urgent need for governments to introduce and enforce processes that allow citizens, including vulnerable communities, to participate in development planning. Based in Sri Lanka, this study provides a holistic approach to fostering community engagement in risk-sensitive urban planning and development (RSUPD). The study adopts a constructivist grounded theory strategy followed by multiple qualitative analyses. Through 17 expert interviews and focus-group discussions involving 27 community participants, six key themes were identified with their relationships, which are: barriers, enablers, stakeholders, best practices, participatory methods, and community transformation indicators. The total interpretive structural modelling and MICMAC analysis found that the absence of legal provisions for inclusive planning and political corruption are critical barriers to community engagement in RSUPD, while digital telecommunication infrastructure is a driving enabler. The social network analysis and stakeholder analysis shows that there is a need for the state agencies responsible for urban development and disaster management being accountable for promoting community engagement at the national level, while non-governmental and inter-governmental organisations have more power in empowering locals and therefore, they can play an active role in implementing inclusive RSUPD. The study found that the lead agency should select engagement methods based on project phases, purpose and objectives(s) of intended engagement, community context, scale, and local experience level. The study produced a four-stage theory of change: Setting-up community engagement through stakeholder collaboration; developing the participatory intervention; implementing the framed intervention; post-engagement community change evaluation using knowledge, attitude, and practice indicators. This comprehensive and holistic approach provides valuable practical guidance for implementing participatory development practices and evaluation by clarifying and detailing how community transformation and consequent system changes can emerge through inclusive development.
Awarding Institution - The University of Salford
Director of Studies Terrence Fernando
Second Supervisor Kaushal Keraminiyage

(MPhil) Construction and Project Management
Master of Philosophy (MPhil)

Status Complete
Part Time No
Years 2017 - 2020
Project Title A Model for Forecasting the Running Costs of Commercial Buildings in Sri Lanka
Project Description Conventionally, early-stage investment decisions on buildings were purely based on initial capital costs and simply ignored running costs and total lifecycle cost. This was basically due to the absence of estimating models that yield running costs at the early design stage. Often, when the design of a building, which is responsible for 10 to15% of its total cost, is completed, 80% of the total cost is committed. This study, therefore, aims to develop a model based on building characteristics, which enable an early-stage determinant of running costs of buildings, to predict the running costs of commercial buildings. While positioning this research in a positivist research paradigm, a survey research strategy was adopted along with a questionnaire survey and a documentary review for data collection. The study involved 135 respondents for identifying factors influencing the running costs of commercial buildings and 46 commercial buildings were accessed to collect running costs and building characteristics data. A Pareto analysis, relative significance index (RSI), bivariate correlation analysis, regression modelling, and hedonic price imputation index were performed on collected data. The RSI confirmed, eight categories of running costs factors: environmental, maintenance, managerial, building characteristics, building design and construction defects, social, tenant, and political, respectively. Among 48 sub-factors identified, the study confirmed, natural deterioration, failure to identify the true cause of a defect, lack of preventive maintenance, insufficient fund, building services, building age, occupancy, vandalism by tenants, misuse of property, expectation of tenants have a substantial impact on running costs. According to the Pareto analysis, utilities (39%), services (19%), admin work (14%), and cleaning (8%) are four main cost constituents, responsible for 80% of running costs, which can be represented by highly correlated building characteristics of the number of floors (0.950), building height (0.945), and building size (0.943). Approximately 94% of the variance in annual running costs/GIFA (sq.m) is expressed by variables of net floor area, the number of floors, and working hours/day together with a mean prediction accuracy of -1.6%. The index constructed revealed, there is an increasing trend of running costs of commercial buildings in Sri Lanka, in office and bank buildings particularly, over the last recent years. Further, a noticeable increase in running cost can be observed during the first quarter while there is a slight reduction in the second quarter of each year. Early-stage supportive running costs estimation model proposed by the study would enable construction professionals to benchmark the running costs and thereby optimise the building design. The developed hedonic model illustrated the variance of running costs concerning the changes in characteristics of a building. While facilitating early-stage running costs estimation, the study findings collectively support building owners, designers and constructors, and facilities managers to optimize the in-use phase costs of a commercial building in terms of designing and constructing cost-effective, sustainable facilities by altering building characteristics during its’ design stage as well as carefully considering the significant running costs factors during its’ in-use phase.
Awarding Institution University of Moratuwa

BSc (Hons)
Bachelor's Degree

Status Complete
Part Time No
Years 2013 - 2017
Awarding Institution University of Moratuwa