In tropical climate, there is actually abundant quantity of daylight but yet to be utilised. The excessively high and unpredictable external illuminance could cause non-uniform indoor illuminance distribution and visual discomfort. In order to improve daylighting quality in contemporary high-rise open plan offices, proper design of internal shading should be investigated. A base model was derived from previous case studies for simulation using Radiance. Various venetian blinds, vertical blinds and light shelves were configured for the experiment. Daylight factor (DF) was evaluated for quantitative performance; work plane illuminance (WPI) distribution and vertical plane luminance ratio were investigated for qualitative performance. The findings demonstrated that generally blinds were not a good potential for daylight utilisation but good in reducing luminance contrast. Light shelves improved performances in DF and WPI distribution but increased the luminance contrast. Hence, integrations of light shelves and partial venetian blind (45° closed) were proposed as the effective designs for all orientations. The highest improvements of 31.8% in WPI distribution and 66.7% in luminance ratio were achieved for south and east orientations, respectively. This paper demonstrates that with proper internal shading design, effective daylighting depth can be significantly improved from typically used 2.5 H rule of thumb to 3.6 H.

As daylight is dynamic, there is no one common solution for all scenarios. Understanding of sky conditions is the fundamental to effective daylighting. It is more critical in tropical climate where the sky is predominantly intermediate with inconsistent presence of direct sunlight (DSL). Thereby, daylighting performances of several light shelf configurations were experimented with physical scaled model under actual tropical sky conditions. External illuminance and indoor work plane illuminance (WPI) levels were measured concurrently in a reference model and a test model for comparisons. Daylight ratio or daylight factor and WPI uniformity ratio were computed for analysis. From the results, different optimum cases were identified for various sky conditions. Light shelves performed the best under intermediate sky with DSL from low angle. The highest improvement in WPI at deep room area and WPI uniformity were 24.87% and 364.96%, respectively. The performances of light shelves under overcast sky were better than light shelf under intermediate sky without DSL. This paper concluded that designing light shelf by responding to changeable sky conditions and DSL is more crucial than considering the façade orientations. Dynamic light shelf was proposed to configure the optimum cases for each tropical sky conditions.

This paper attempts to ascertain the impacts of population density on the spread and severity of COVID-19 in Malaysia. Besides describing the spatio-temporal contagion risk of the virus, ultimately, it seeks to test the hypothesis that higher population density results in exacerbated COVID-19 virulence in the community. The population density of 143 districts in Malaysia, as per data from Malaysia’s 2010 population census, was plotted against cumulative COVID-19 cases and infection rates of COVID-19 cases, which were obtained from Malaysia’s Ministry of Health official website. The data of these three variables were collected between 19 January 2020 and 31 December 2020. Based on the observations, districts that have high population densities and are highly inter-connected with neighbouring districts, whether geographically, socio-economically, or infrastructurally, tend to experience spikes in COVID-19 cases within weeks of each other. Using a parametric approach of the Pearson correlation, population density was found to have a moderately strong relationship to cumulative COVID-19 cases (p-value of 0.000 and R² of 0.415) and a weak relationship to COVID-19 infection rates (p-value of 0.005 and R² of 0.047). Consequently, we provide several non-pharmaceutical lessons, including urban planning strategies, as passive containment measures that may better support disease interventions against future contagious diseases.

Little attention has been paid to the impacts of institutional–human–environment dimensions on the outcome of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) abatement. Through the diagnostic social–ecological system (SES) framework, this review paper aimed to investigate what and how the multifaceted social, physical, and governance factors affected the success level of seven selected Asia-Pacific countries (namely, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, and New Zealand) in combatting COVID-19. Drawing on statistical data from the Our World In Data website, we measured the COVID-19 severity or abatement success level of the countries on the basis of cumulative positive cases, average daily cases, and mortality rates for the period of 1 February 2020 to 30 June 2020. A qualitative content analysis using three codes, i.e., present (P), partially present (PP), and absent (A) for each SES attribute, as well as score calculation and rank ordering for government response effectiveness and the abatement success level across the countries, was undertaken. Not only did the standard coding process ensure data comparability but the data were deemed substantially reliable with Cohen’s kappa of 0.76. Among 13 attributes of the SES factors, high facility adequacy, comprehensive COVID-19 testing policies, strict lockdown measures, imposition of penalty, and the high trust level towards the government seemed to be significant in determining the COVID-19 severity in a country. The results show that Vietnam (ranked first) and New Zealand (ranked second), with a high presence of attributes/design principles contributing to high-level government stringency and health and containment indices, successfully controlled the virus, while Indonesia (ranked seventh) and Japan (ranked sixth), associated with the low presence of design principles, were deemed least successful. Two lessons can be drawn: (i) having high number of P for SES attributes does not always mean a panacea for the pandemic; however, it would be detrimental to a country if it lacked them severely, and (ii) some attributes (mostly from the governance factor) may carry higher weightage towards explaining the success level. This comparative study providing an overview of critical SES attributes in relation to COVID-19 offers novel policy insights, thus helping policymakers devise more strategic, coordinated measures, particularly for effective country preparedness and response in addressing the current and the future health crisis.