Analysing Design Failures in Nigerian Public Infrastructure Projects: A Post-Occupancy Evaluation Study

Public infrastructure projects in Nigeria, encompassing market buildings, bus terminals, public toilets, and community centres, frequently exhibit premature functional failure, user abandonment, and rapid physical deterioration attributable to design deficiencies rather than construction quality alone. This study conducts post-occupancy evaluations of eighteen publicly funded infrastructure projects completed between 2018 and 2023 across Anambra, Enugu, Plateau, and Kwara states, with the aim of systematically identifying and categorising design failure modes and their contributory factors. The post-occupancy evaluation framework applied assesses functional performance, user satisfaction, technical performance, and design intent-reality correspondence across seven infrastructure typologies. Data collection combines physical performance assessments by trained evaluators, structured user satisfaction surveys administered to one thousand and two hundred facility users, and document analysis of original design briefs, drawings, and procurement records. A Design Failure Mode Analysis is conducted to classify and quantify failure categories. Findings identify context-blindness, defined as the application of standardised design templates without site-specific adaptation, as the most prevalent design failure category across sampled projects. User exclusion from the design process is identified as the strongest systemic predictor of functional failure. The study develops a Pre-Procurement Design Quality Checklist for use by state public works ministries to prevent foreseeable design failures at project inception. Recommendations include mandatory post-occupancy evaluation requirements for all federally funded public infrastructure projects. Keywords: post-occupancy evaluation, design failure, public infrastructure, Nigeria, user-centred design.