ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 809

International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy Session XII A POST OCCUPANCY EVALUATION OF THE UAE MUSEUM INDOOR ENVIRONMENTS Hawra Sharif Askari1 & Hasim Altan1 1 Sustainable Design of the Built Environment, Faculty of Engineering & IT, British University in Dubai, UAE, hawra. [email protected] / [email protected] Abstract Museums are the main link between past, present and future. They are a reliable source of information for researchers, and a good entertainer for teaching children history and other topics. In addition, they allow people to see different but original ancient artworks and artifact by visiting them. This paper discusses the UAE museum indoor environments and their effect on human health, comfort, performance and productivity. The aim of this study is to help providing comprehensive guidelines for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) museums with regard to enhancing their indoor environmental quality. The study investigated three main controlling factors in museum environments considering artifacts, visitors and personnel, and conducted site visits and questionnaire-based surveys as well as interviews at existing museums in Dubai and Sharjah in order to evaluate their indoor environmental quality. The paper is discussing the results gathered from the museums personnel/staff surveys as a continuation of the study started over in 2014 in which the focus was mainly on the visitor satisfaction levels toward the museum indoor environment. Since the museum personnel spend relatively long time inside the museums as their working environments, depending on their position and duty, they may be in contact with artifacts directly or indirectly for long periods of time. Evaluating the conditions of the environment they work in and how it affects them is very important point to be considered in the studies related to museum indoor environments. Dubai is hosting Expo 2020, which will lead in setting up many cultural projects and museums in the region. Having clear guidelines for these projects will certainly increase the efficiency and the professional level of the future projects. Thus, providing these guidelines and recommendations in advance will help significantly in considering the quality of the indoor environments in the projects at the early stages of design. Keywords Indoor Environments, Museums, Human Health and Comfort, Performance and Productivity, UAE. 807