B.A. Tayeh^{1, 2,}, Khalid Al Hallaq¹, Fathi A. Sabha¹

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.

construction industry, construction problems, design phase, faults/errors, gaza strip, maintenance, palestine, schools buildings, UNRWA schools