Effects of Faulty Design Phase on School Buildings Maintenance in Gaza Strip

The aim of this paper is to identify and rank the design phase faults/errors affecting on the maintenance of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)'s school’s buildings in Gaza Strip, and to propose recommendations for minimizing the future maintenance problem related to the school buildings at Gaza Strip. A survey was conducted to collect the required data were adopted in this study. This study reveals the important factors that leading to defects in the design stage which includes: lack of workshops to discuss construction problems between project parts, Inadequate QA/QC programs during design stage, Lack of auditing and archiving of approved as-built drawing documents electronically after the completion the project. The study recommends several actions to improve maintenance performance of UNRWA's schools in Gaza Strip. The designer must take into account maintenance considerations during the design and supervision stages by choosing of durable materials. The UNRWA should conduct workshops or training courses for designers, supervisor, and maintenance engineers

تأثير الأخطاء والعيوب التصميمية والتنفيذية على صيانة مباني مدارس الانروا في قطاع غزة

Due to the Palestine refugee students need free education and due to population growth and increased rate of transfers from Palestinian Authority schools, where the quality of education and infrastructure is low due to conflict, closure, and political turmoil. Many UNRWA school buildings have been built to handle the increase and transfer of students. Thus, many errors will happen, especially during design and construction phase. This will increase the high maintenance costs. Therefore, minimizing these defects will reduce maintenance cost and increase the lifespan of structures. This study aims to improve maintenance performance of UNRWA's schools in Gaza Strip. This improvement will be achieved by minimizing the defects of design and construction phase to increase the lifespan of UNRWA schools buildings. The objectives of this study are: firstly, to identify the main types of defects in design phase. Secondly, to identify the main types of defects in construction phase. Thirdly, to study the effects of design and construction's faults/errors on maintenance of UNRWA's construction schools building at Gaza Strip. Finally, to submit suggestions for solving future maintenance problem related to the school buildings at Gaza Strip. A quantitative (questionnaire survey) and qualitative (case studies) to collect the required data were adopted in this research. Furthermore, this study reveals the important factors, leading to defects in the design stage which includes: lack of workshops to discuss construction problems between project parts, Inadequate QA/QC programs during design stage, Lack of auditing and archiving of approved as-built drawing documents electronically after the completion the project. As a result of this study, it is found out that the important factors that leading to defects in construction stage include: contract awarding on basis of the lowest bidder price, damage due to the multi-use of damaged formwork in the construction industry, insufficient testing procedures during preliminary of water feeding and sewage networks, accelerate the construction to avoid delay, and applying painting layers improperly. Finally, the study found out that the most important effects of faulty design and construction on maintenance of UNRWA schools were: increase in maintenance works, increase in maintenance duration, and increase in maintenance budget. The study recommends several actions to improve maintenance performance of UNRWA's schools in Gaza Strip. The designer must take into account maintenance considerations during the design and supervision stages by choosing of durable materials. The UNRWA should conduct workshops or training courses for designers, supervisor, and maintenance engineers to improve the quality of plumbing and sanitary works, as wills as finishing materials in school buildings. This research recommends that a strict quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) program to be implemented for the designer and contractor to insure they follow the latest economical and practical specifications. The maintenance team should provide the designers with feedback to reduce the repetition of maintenance work