Conceptual Framework of Landscape Physical Quality Assessment: A Review of Challenges and Paradigms for the Malaysian Construction Industry

Abstract

Workmanship quality is becoming an increasingly important issue in construction project management, sparking tons of new debates. In a more profound aspect, practitioners consider landscape quality to be oversimplified in its quality assessment. Various rating tools were introduced, but critics argued that a high-quality landscape had already been achieved. Despite the fact that existing rating tools indicated that the themes and elements accessed already had a landscape component, only a few minor aspects were evaluated. Given the diversity of the landscape as well as the political and management systems, experts in the field are unable to identify a single type of tool that is universally applicable to quantifying the overall quality of a landscape construction project. The main question which remains to be answered is, “what constitutes the landscape physical quality assessment?”. This article aims to provide a concise review of the process theory for measuring criteria related to the assessment of landscape physical quality to address the research question. The review is based on the theoretical background and concepts of the relevant study taken from various established database references on “landscape quality”, “landscape assessment”, and “landscape evaluation”. Multilayered thematic analysis was carried out to identify the landscape physical quality assessment indicator. In accordance with the metadata findings, landscape quality assessment should have been evaluated using five key categories: 1) perceived character and significant values; 2) perception, preferences, and satisfaction; 3) landscape visual and aesthetic; 4) environmental condition, sensitivity, and trend; and 5) construction, functional, and performance quality. This study implies that the landscape physical quality assessment was generic, regardless of landscape project type, which could then efficiently steer industry players in conducting standard quality checks and preparing big data for landscape construction projects.