User's satisfaction towards mosque layout design criteria in Malaysia

Mosque is important place for all Muslims around the world as it is a place to perform religious activities. Many mosques are designed under the influence of some aspect, such as traditions and architect's own inspiration for building a new place of sanctity. However, the design layout of some mosques nowadays is not suitable for some user mostly in the rural area where most of the user is older. This is due to lack of any standards and guidelines, mosques are being designed and built as per personal wisdom of the architects, financiers and individuals or groups responsible for its execution. The objective of this research is to identify the mosque layout design criteria according to the guideline, standard and requirement of a mosque, to determine the level of users' satisfaction toward the mosque layout design criteria and to propose a recommendation to improve users' satisfaction towards future mosque layout design criteria. Two mosques involved in this research which located in Perak Tengah District. The data in this research are collected using observation checklist according to the guideline, and requirement of a mosque and questionnaire distributed to 306 users of the mosques. The result from this research shows that the mosques has followed the requirement but there were a few regulations that were not properly enforced by the mosques.