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People who lived through the COVID-19 lockdowns have been reported to experience temporary depression, loneliness, and discomfort. Balcony can serve as an accessible place of respite to ease emotional distress when being confined at home. This research aims to systematically study balcony usage and design preference as a space to achieve well-being. It is based on views of apartment dwellers who experienced lockdown measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. From literature reviews and surveys, 14 popular balcony activities and 29 balcony design elements were derived and used in a questionnaire supplemented with drawings to best illustrate some of the concept. 505 effective samples (N = 505) were received from Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia and Portugal. Statistical analyzed results showed that Getting sun and air, Gardening, and Watching/Observing the street are the three most preferred balcony activities among these countries. The preferred balcony views, types, enclosures, decorations, and sizes are ranked with Friedman Test and summarized in this paper along with the relevant cultures and lifestyles discussion. The comprehensive findings of this study can offer architects and housing developers valuable insights for making design decision and promote well-being in apartment dwelling balcony design. Ultimately, balcony is an important component in an apartment. It can be used, not only, to reduce feelings of isolation, but also, to conduct social activities and housework during a pandemic lockdown.

The aim of this paper is to promote the importance of interior design during the early land development stage so that unnecessary design revisions and extra construction costs and time could be avoided. Traditionally, procedural architectural and interior conceptual design proposal is often used by developers when applying the land development permit. Due to land development financing and time pressure, this procedural design proposal often contains the brief site and floor plans, elevations, sections, and information to meet the local planning and regulation. However, after the license has been obtained, the discrepancies between submitted procedural design and actual functions are often identified by the hotel development stakeholders, hence revisions and extra costs are required. To explore the potential impacts of it, 48 semi-structured and unstructured interviews have been conducted. The process revealed how group experience helped decision-making at various stages of land development, design, construction, operation management and the potential impacts of traditional land development process. The results showed that the early involvement of interior design with hotel development and operational teams will enable an integrated design and production delivery process, a sustainable hotel development and efficient financing can then be achieved and applied to the future similar practice.

The objective of this study was to learn views from design teams, housing developers and users for housing development green space quality that could best enhance occupant well-being and real-estate value addition. Through literature review, 26 landscape design and service factors were identified and tested via a questionnaire survey conducted in Taiwan. Participants (N = 380) evaluated the importance level of the proposed factors with five-point Likert scale. Friedman Ranking Test and Kruskal-Wallis Test were used to analyse data. The results showed that ease of maintenance, regulation compliance and energy saving were the top factors for all participants. These are the economic advantage, bidder characteristics and environmental awareness concerns. Life cycle design and water retention and detention factors were evaluated as the critical factors from the potential housing developer and buyers. Green infrastructure connection and neighbourhood connection were ranked as very important factors for landscape architects. Landscape architects to practice with license and use LIM/BIM in project was particularly expected by the potential housing buyers with high importance level. The preliminary findings of this research can assist public housing agency and private developers for policy and decision making effectively in future housing development green space projects.

The hotel lobby is where a guest forms his or her first impression of a hotel’s brand image and quality; hence, integrating appropriate design criteria into hotel lobby design is a value creation act. The novelty and aim of this study is to identified and categorized 15 hotel lobby design factors and ranked their importance and satisfaction levels from hotel operators’ perspective to achieve value innovation and sustainable operations management. For this purpose, it systematically developed a questionnaire based on the Kano method and conducted a questionnaire survey on 30 hotel operators in China. Yang’s importance-satisfaction model was applied in data analysis. The study found that economic advantage and value creation are must-be and one-dimensional aspects, and considerations such as modular design, appropriate construction management and cost control, ease of maintenance and repair, and atmospheric design methods are important economic advantage criteria. Strategies involving these considerations facilitate value innovation and sustainable operations and guarantee a comfortable and environmentally friendly stay to hotel guests. The findings not only clarify hotel operators’ insights regarding the use of attractive factors in hotel lobby design but also serve as a reference for international hotel operators to develop possible business models with lobby design strategies.

This study proposes an approach for conducting comparative assessments between renovation and new construction through the use of CIB utility theory systems and applies the methodology to an adaptive case study. To this end, the theoretical underpinnings of CIB were explained in the literature review, and the method of data analysis, selection of usability functions, and standard condition assessment scale were explained. The proposed model can be used to evaluate CIB utility theory systems and for life-cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA). The current findings revealed that the maintenance planning system and 5 G information must be improved because they are the key to Taiwan’s future development. Considering that the aim of cost-optimal maintenance and renovation planning is to not only optimise the service life-cycle costs of building components but also to maintain appropriate conditions and the performance of the respective components, the model used in this study prioritises performance over cost. Therefore, proposals are made for the future development of LCSA considering stakeholders of various projects for new construction by enhancing objectivity and accessibility.