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Nowadays, strata living represents a modern lifestyle (or luxurious lifestyle for those occupying the high‐end strata unit). The uniqueness of strata living is that it has facilities and common areas, which encompass multi‐purpose hall, playground, lift, corridors, etc. These facilities and common areas are shared between the residents. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the involvement of Commissioner of Building (COB) and the rights of the Joint Management Body (JMB), as well as developers' responsibilities, after the formation of a JMB. In order to do so, this paper looks into the role of the COB, the powers and duties of a JMB and developers' obligations.

This paper looks at how the Building and Common Property (Maintenance and Management) Act 2007 (Act 663) (BCPMMA) helps the JMB and the developer in maintaining and managing a multi storey building.

It is found that maintenance of these facilities and common areas is essential to ensure its optimal performance over its life cycle. This has to be carried out efficiently and professionally by developers. Nevertheless, the authors often came across complaints by unsatisfied residents on the maintenance and management of the buildings and facilities.

Prior to the establishment of this Act, multi storey buildings were governed by the Strata Title Act 1985 (Amended 2007) which stipulates that the Management Corporation can only be formed after a quarter of the aggregate share units has been transferred to the owner.

On the other hand, the developers usually provide a minimum amount of services based on the income from the maintenance collection. Realizing the issues have become crucial, the government, in 2007, introduced the BCPMMA to provide guidelines in order to have proper maintenance and management of buildings and facilities in multi storey buildings.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the durability and flexibility characteristics of latex modified ferrocement in comparison with conventional ferrocement particularly when exposed to severe environmental conditions.

The research programme encompasses the laboratory investigation on the structural, the deformation behaviour and characteristic of latex modified ferrocement elements cured in air and salt‐water environments. The tests include determination of load and deflection characteristics, moments, crack widths, crack spacing, and the number of cracks when subjected to static flexure.

Test result indicates a significant improvement in reducing and bridging micro cracks, especially in the pre‐peak load region. Fracture toughness and deformability increased significantly. However, the post peak behaviour was quite similar to conventional ferrocement.

The results show that latex modification has improved the mechanical properties of cement mortars, particularly their flexural strength.

Frequent fire incidences in various hospitals across the globe with devastating effects on humans and other resources have multiplied. Stakeholders in the health-care sector are worried because of the yearly fire outbreak increase. However, fire safety management has been proved as a successful platform to mitigate fire in health-care facilities. How far regarding public health-care facilities is yet to receive in-depth studies in Malaysia. This paper aims to investigate the issues associated with fire safety management and proffers possible solutions to improve safety in public health-care facilities from the operators’ perception.

The objectives were achieved through a combination of case studies of five selected Malaysia’s public hospitals and a qualitative approach. Thematic analysis with the assistance of MAXQDA (software program designed for computer-assisted qualitative and mixed methods data) 2018, a type of qualitative data analysis software was used to analyse the collated data which emerged from the knowledgeable participants.

Lax implementation of safety policy, inadequate water pressure, poor maintenance, inadequate communication system, amongst others, emerged as the issues. Findings proffer five main measures to possibly improve fire safety management in public health-care buildings. This includes a feasible institutional framework, improve the emergency response team, improve the occupational health and safety system and others.

This paper is limited to exploring the issues associated with fire safety management and proffer possible solutions to improve safety in public health-care facilities from the operators’ perception. Future research is needed to engage useful information in advancing fire safety management in public hospital buildings and possibly developing a qualitative model using a generic fire response model. Also, to investigate the level of compliance with the requirements of a fire safety management plan and possibly develop a well-detailed fire safety plan in Malaysia’s public health-care buildings.

As part of the paper implications, the paper concludes that improved fire protection systems via modern technologies and training of key staff members in accident response and recovery during fire emergencies should be encouraged. This can be achieved through the enforcement and implementation of a fire safety management plan. Thus, this study is encouraging the implementation and sustainability of a fire safety management plan for health-care buildings across Malaysia.

To the best of this paper’s knowledge, this is possibly the first comprehensive paper on fire safety management in public health-care facilities that engaged operators in Malaysia. Moreover, this paper proffers feasible policy solutions to improve the fire safety management plan in public health-care buildings.

Globally, several studies have shown that hospital building is charged with multiple inherent risks because a large number of users are vulnerable in tragic events. Thus, the need for the fire safety management plan (FSMP) has been proved as an instrument to mitigate fire and related risks in healthcare facilities. In Malaysia, FSMP regarding public healthcare building is yet to be explored in-depth. Therefore, this paper explores the information necessary to develop the FSMP framework for public hospital buildings.

The paper’s objectives were accomplished via a combination of five face-to-face interviews and observations of five selected public hospitals in Pulau Pinang, Malaysia. The five key participants were across the five public hospitals and collated data analysed through thematic analysis with the assistance of MAXQDA 2018.

Findings show that fire safety stakeholders practice system, fire safety action plan and fire risk management were the three main variables that promote fire safety programme and will improve FSMP for Malaysia’s public hospital buildings.

This paper’s data collection is limited to Penang, Malaysia, and a qualitative research approach was used, but this does not deteriorate the strength of the findings. Future studies are needed to consider validating findings from this paper via a quantitative approach.

The suggested framework can be employed by Malaysia’s public hospital authorities as a guideline to mitigate fire hazards in the country’s healthcare facilities.

This paper is encouraging hospital operators and other key stakeholders to improve on their FSMP for healthcare buildings across Malaysia as part of the study implications.

There is increasing recognition amongst healthcare providers on the necessity to improve fire safety management in healthcare facilities. This is possibly not yet satisfactory because of recent fire incidents in Asia. This paper set out to analyse the literature because of the paucity of systematic reviews on fire safety management of public healthcare facilities and proffer preventive measures.

Thirty related studies were identified with the support of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses via Scopus and Web of Science databases.

Influencing factors, hindrances to fire safety management and preventive measures for fire-related occurrence in Asian hospital buildings were the three themes that emerged from the reviewed. The factors that influence fire in Asian hospital buildings were categorised into technical, management and legislation factors.

The recommendations of this paper were based on literature that was systematically reviewed but does not compromise the robustness concerning fire safety management in hospital buildings across Asian countries. Much is needed to be known regarding fire safety in healthcare buildings across Asian countries. This paper recommended exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach as part of the implications for further studies. This will allow in-depth face-to-face interviews and increase the generalisability of future findings concerning fire safety management in hospital buildings across Asian countries to a larger population.

As part of the practical implications, this paper recommends fire safety management plan as one of the practical possible measures for addressing technical, management and legislation factors. Also recommended is training and fire safety education of healthcare staff in collaboration with safety firefighters to address major issues that may arise from management factors. The government should upgrade the safety technology equipment in healthcare facilities as part of measures to mitigate issues concerning technical and legislation factors. Also, the identified factors are part of the theoretical contributions to the advancement of knowledge and this brings to the front burners new opening.

This is probably the first systematic review paper on fire safety hospital buildings in Asia.

Effective building maintenance management is vital for reducing the impact of building defects and costly building maintenance work. Such practice significantly contributes to the public sector in terms of cost reduction, improved effectiveness and efficiency in maintenance works, increasing safety and well-being of the occupants, expanding the life of building stocks and expanding the value of investment for the government building assets. The maintenance practice in Malaysia is still emerging in comparison to many developed nations. The purpose of this study is to determine the current scenario of the building maintenance approach at the design stage in public buildings in Malaysia.

An extensive questionnaire survey was held, involving 312 key players (38 per cent out of 820 predetermined participants) in Malaysia.

The analysis showed that building maintenance in public building in Malaysia still uses the reactive approach. Despite the Malaysian Government’s adoption of a proactive maintenance approach, unfortunately, there are some misunderstandings among the key players regarding the approach. The research results demonstrate that the key players had a lack of understanding on the concept of the proactive maintenance management approach and that they were either ignorant or had insufficient awareness of proactive maintenance approach.

The contribution of this study is useful for the government to adopt a more proactive building maintenance policy at the design stage, to give awareness on proactive building maintenance to the key players in their construction project and as a guide to the key players to adopt a maintenance plan at the design stage of work.

In Malaysia, a vertical residential building (VRB) is still facing challenges associated with property management. The lack of experience in property management resulted in the management, acting unprofessionally that cause a lot of problems to the homeowners and their properties. The findings demonstrated that maintenance of the facilities and common areas in a VRB is essential to ensure its optimal performance over its life cycle. This has to be carried out efficiently and professionally by the qualified property manager. Unfortunately, not every property manager can perform all the tasks efficiently and professionally. Thus, this leads to an increasing number of complaints by unsatisfied homeowners’ particularly on the maintenance and management of the buildings and facilities. To satisfy the homeowners, the issue of transparency is one of the area concerns that need to be emphasised in the property management system practiced in Malaysia. This case study area of Klang Valley poses as one of the urban areas that has the highest number of vertical buildings, especially the medium cost of VRB. The purpose of this study is to explore the satisfaction level of homeowners towards the management system, maintenance services and facilities provided by the management of the medium cost VRB in the Klang Valley.

The study adopted a quantitative approach. The survey method was used as an appropriate method for inquiry of the data. Face to face survey was conducted with respondents at a medium-cost residential building in Klang Valley, Malaysia.

The findings demonstrated that homeowners living in medium-cost VRB in Klang Valley are satisfied and faced issues with the management system, maintenance service and services provided by the management of the medium-cost VRB. The only issue confronted by the homeowners with the medium-cost VRB is the commitment of the management towards their involvement in organising the activities, problem-solving and taking action on residents’ reports or complaints.

The findings suggest that appointing qualified property managers who understand property management has increased the performance of the management team. Most importantly, qualified property managers are equipped with knowledge in managing people, especially to create awareness on a sense of responsibility and belonging.

This study has bridged the research gap on property management of the medium-cost of VRB in Malaysia. This will add value to the management of the medium cost of VRB.