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There have been complaints and criticisms of the conditions and performance of university buildings in Malaysia. The purpose of this paper is to report research looking into building maintenance practices in Malaysia.

To achieve its objectives, the research combined a literature review and a case study. The case study aimed to provide a details and factual information on the maintenance procedures of a university.

It was found that the maintenance procedures on the case studied were corrective and budget driven. It was also found that the university favours out‐sourcing to in‐sourcing their maintenance service.

The findings of this study are based on a case, therefore the findings may not represent the maintenance practices of other public universities in Malaysia or elsewhere.

Some universities may adopt some of the good maintenance practices of the university studied. Some of the observations could be helpful to other universities striving to achieve best maintenance practices.

The paper is able to expose the weakness in university maintenance practices in Malaysia and outlines some positive attributes.

Retrofitting and rehabilitation are part of the conservation approach in Heritage Building Conservation Guideline 2016 in Malaysia. Heritage buildings can be retrofitted to preserve their culture and history while being given a new lease. Rehabilitation is a preservation requirement that is more flexible since it assumes that the structure has already deteriorated to the point where repairs are required to prevent further deterioration. Although the strategies of these two approaches are different, their combination resulted in sustainable heritage building maintenance. This long-term maintenance strategy is necessary, especially for Malaysia's numerous heritage schools, which have serious maintenance problems as a result of infrequent maintenance, repairs, and funding shortages.

This study involved secondary data from an intensive literature review along with a comparative study from articles review and context analysis. A comparative study was conducted to determine the typical issue with heritage school buildings and the best maintenance practice for these structures. Finally, it involved a SWOT analysis study of retrofitting and rehabilitating heritage school buildings will be discussed in this study as well.

The findings of this study will focus on developing a strategic planning framework and maintenance for heritage school buildings in Malaysia to achieve sustainable maintenance. It will also highlight sustainable maintenance best practices for heritage school buildings in Malaysia. Finally, SWOT analysis will go over the pros and cons of retrofitting and rehabilitation for these buildings.

This paper put forward the requirements of strategic planning in heritage school buildings and outlines the significance of sustainable maintenance for educational buildings. It is an alternative for cost savings that has not been extensively investigated in previous studies.

In recent years, there have been many concerns about issues surrounding building maintenance, which are continually increasing. However, there is a lack of comprehensive studies on building maintenance issues, their effects and the way forward. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to carry out a comprehensive review of building maintenance issues, their effects and the way forward. It also aims to develop a conceptual model that can support future research.

A systematic review of the literature published from 2009 to 2019 was carried out. Five relevant databases were searched, based on this study's search terms, and a narrative synthesis of the results from the included studies was carried out. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they fulfilled the inclusion criteria of this systematic review.

This study has identified and classified building maintenance issues, their effects and the way forward, and also developed a conceptual model that demonstrates the association between issues, their effects and the way forward. The way forward of the conceptual model focuses on effective management, technical capability, development of human resources and cost optimisation.

This paper addresses an important topic: the aspect in which it differs from existing studies is that, in the latter, the researchers studied a single sub-issue, whereas this systematic review includes a comprehensive study of building maintenance issues. Furthermore, this review has demonstrated how the way forward can moderate issues and their effects.

BIM has much potential to improve the effectiveness of construction works with respect to design, construction and maintenance. However, many Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) firms are still lagging in the adoption and implementation of BIM in both developing and developed countries. The purpose of this study is to assess the barriers to BIM implementation, and examine the ways forward to improve BIM adoption within the Nigerian AEC firms.

A comprehensive literature review and questionnaire survey were used in the study. The survey targeted four different AEC firms. These include architectural firms, facility management firms, quantity surveying firms and structural engineering firms in Lagos, Nigeria. The data obtained were analyzed using mean score, standard deviation, Kruskal–Wallis test, and factor analysis.

The study identified 20 barriers to BIM implementation and identified ten ways forward to improve BIM adoption in AEC firms, particularly in Nigeria. The relative importance of both the identified barriers and the ways forward were gauged. The Kruskal–Wallis tests revealed that except for one (out of 20) identified barriers, and one (out of 10) identified ways forward; there is no statistical significant difference in the perceptions of four different AEC firms. The factor analysis result grouped the 20 identified barriers into three major factors to include: weak top management support and BIM environment related issues; cost of BIM software and training issues; and incompatibility, legal, contractual, and culture related issues.

The significance of the study cannot be over-emphasized due to BIM relevance to construction stakeholders and researchers at large.

The study findings would inform the decisions of the construction stakeholders to make some policy recommendations capable of positively influencing the full BIM implementation in AEC firms.