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Fires pose significant risks, encompassing loss of life, destruction of property, and substantial adverse impacts on the economy. Therefore, the prioritization of fire safety in building structures must be embraced by all relevant stakeholders, including building owners, authorities, and the general public. However, traditional fire safety assessment methods can be laborious and challenging, impeding the identification of potential fire hazards and the selection of optimal fire safety measures. To this end, this research study offers an analytic hierarchy process for assessing building fire safety. Two case studies are presented to support this model's outperformance compared with conventional assessment techniques. The proposed method yields hazard ratings of 5.3 and 4.3 along with safety ratings of 5.5 and 5.9 for the two case studies. Additionally, the proposed model yields comprehensible, well-documented, and comparable results. Therefore, it serves as a valuable decision-making tool for evaluating fire hazards and enhancing the efficiency of building structures. As a result, decision-makers can identify current and future fire protection and prevention requirements with greater ease and precision, making the decision-making process more effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to make sure that structures adhere to the necessary norms and laws, it is essential to evaluate the quality of building construction. According to several frameworks, the quality of a building's construction can be assessed in a number of different circumstances. In order to provide building projects with excellent quality and competitive pricing, hard work is required. To raise the standard of building construction, a model was created. The goal of this project is to provide a model for raising building construction quality. This study used the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) technique, which includes the determination of consistency ratios, pairwise comparisons, normalization, and a comparison matrix. The difficulty of implementing quality was determined for each task using the AHP technique. This was multiplied by the quality factor to obtain the final quality level. The model was tested in three different situations, and it was discovered that quality application is challenging across all building operations. Using a quality evaluation technique, this study assessed the building construction quality in Saudi Arabia. Additionally, a pairwise comparison, normalization, and a comparison matrix were used to calculate the consistency ratio. The ultimate quality level was determined by multiplying the difficulty level for each activity, as determined using the AHP approach, by the quality factor. This study will therefore be helpful to those involved in Saudi Arabian building, including architects, engineers, quality experts, and others. Additionally, the tool aids in the decision making process for enhancing construction quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents life cycle assessment approach to study the impact of structure and envelope types on the energy consumption and environmental impact of an office building in New York City, USA. In addition, the future costs of environmental impact for various structure and envelope options are assessed according to the current practice and market price of C[O.sub.2]. Eight structure and envelope types for the low-rise office building are investigated, which include concrete and steel structures with various combinations of envelopes. The parameters such as life cycle energy use, global warming potential, and water, air and land emissions are analyzed. The energy simulation is performed by using eQUEST software while the environmental impact is assessed by using ATHENA impact estimator. The building with concrete frame is proved to have lower environmental impact compared to that with steel frame. The precast concrete building is found to be the most economical alternative due to the minimal environmental impact cost. This study is expected to enable the decision makers and building owners to select the best alternative with respect to energy use, and environmental and economic constraints. Key words: energy simulation, LCA, structure and envelope, environmental impact, energy consumption, global warming. Le present article decrit une methode d'evaluation du cycle de vie permettant d'etudier les effets de differents types de structures et enveloppes sur la consommation d'energie et sur l'impact environnemental d'un immeuble de bureaux situe a New-York, aux Etats-Unis. En outre, on evalue les futurs couts de l'impact environnemental de divers types de structures et enveloppes en fonction des pratiques courantes et du prix du C[O.sub.2] sur le marche. On analyse huit types de structures et d'enveloppes destinees a etre installees sur un immeuble de bureaux peu eleve et composees de structures en beton et en acier et differentes combinaisons d'enveloppes. On etudie egalement les parametres tels que la consommation d'energie au cours du cycle de vie, la possible contribution au rechauffement climatique et les emissions de polluants dans l'eau, dans l'air et dans le sol. La simulation de la consommation energetique est realisee a l'aide du logiciel eQUEST et l'impact environnement est evalue au moyen du logiciel ATHENA® Impact Estimator. On demontre que l'immeuble constitue d'une structure en beton a un impact environnemental inferieur a celui de l'immeuble constitue d'une structure en acier. Par ailleurs, on constate que l'immeuble en beton prefabrique constitue une solution de remplacement economique en raison du cout minimal de son impact environnemental. La presente etude est censee aider les decideurs et les proprietaries d'immeubles a choisir la meilleure solution du point de la vue de la consommation d'energie tout en tenant compte des contraintes environnementales et economiques existantes. [Traduit par la Redaction] Mots-cles : simulation de la consommation energetique, evaluation du cycle de vie (ECV), structure et enveloppe, impact environnemental, consommation energetique, rechauffement climatique., Introduction The building sector has a significant role on energy resource depletion and environmental pollution. A building has direct and indirect consumptions of energy. Direct consumption is for construction, operation, [...]

Delays in completing the construction of oil and gas projects impact the production, sustainability, reliability, and revenues of the company, which result in market share losses in the long term. This research aimed to determine, evaluate, and rank the root causes of schedule delays in oil and gas pipeline projects in Saudi Arabia. Forty-seven different causes were identified firstly from a wide-ranging literature review and then finalized through conducting interviews with two local experts. These causes were ranked by distributing and analyzing questionnaires on the topic. Client-related materials, delays in materials and equipment delivery, permit approval, delays in subcontractor work, and delays in preparing and approving engineering drawings were found to be the top five major causes affecting oil and gas pipeline construction projects. From the initial analyses, it was observed that an adversarial relationship was apparent as the results indicated that the parties tended to blame each other for the delays. The sub-causes of the initial five causes were identified and root cause analysis was performed. A delay in the material and equipment delivery category had the most weighted sub-causes; hence, it is of high importance to mitigate it. Further recommendations were made for different delay causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waste characterization is a fundamental step for the development of solid waste management plan. In this regard, understanding the waste generation and disposal patterns plays a crucial role in developing realistic waste reduction strategies. Presently, there exists no solid waste management plan for higher education institutes in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Hence, this article details the fundamental study related to the waste generation and disposal behaviour. The study also dwells into the existing practices of solid waste management and sheds light on the new polices that can be adopted for waste reduction, along with highlighting barriers to optimization of solid waste management. Through investigation, it was found that by adopting E-learning system for examination and replacing paper towels with air dryers in washroom and by revising policy related to printing, considerable reduction in paper waste could be achieved. Furthermore, the adoption of the proposed sustainable drinking water solution led to 90% reduction in plastic pet bottle waste. The recommendations made by the presented investigation can be employed by other similar sized institutes in developing countries for the development of sustainable green campuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal Architecture & Planning is the property of King Saud University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal Architecture & Planning is the property of King Saud University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In Canada and USA, nearly 80 million students and teachers spend at least eight hours daily in schools that could be unhealthy and restrict their ability to learn. Despite this fact there is lack of adopting sustainability principles in school buildings. Even though life cycle assessment (LCA) and LEED® could serve as sustainability measurement tools, studies show that the integration of sustainability principles to LCA has not become standard practice yet. This paper presents an integrated LCA-LEED model that incorporates LCA into LEED and assigns corresponding LEED scores to achieve a high level of sustainability assessment, for the structure and envelope systems of Canadian school buildings. In this model, the selection of the most sustainable structure and envelope type for school buildings is done through the evaluation of three categories of the LEED rating system: energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and LCA (incorporated under the innovation and design process category of LEED). Various options are tested by considering structures such as concrete, steel, masonry and wood, and envelope types such as precast panels, steel stud, wood stud and cavity wall. Energy simulation is performed by eQUEST® (version 3.64) program and LCA is performed by ATHENA® impact estimator. The results show that concrete and masonry buildings have high energy consumption and global warming potential during certain life cycle stages such as manufacturing, construction and demolition. However they have lower annual energy consumption and environmental impact during the operating stage, as well as for the overall life span. Concrete building with minimum insulation has obtained the highest total LEED score (19) followed by masonry (17), while steel and steel-masonry buildings have the least score (14). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]