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Optimum Building Design: Decision Making

Arlani, A.
1986
Thesis, Ph.D (Building), Centre for Building Studies, Concordia University, Supervisors: A.D. Russell and P. Fazio

Arlani, A., (1986), Optimum Building Design: Decision Making, Thesis, Ph.D (Building), Centre for Building Studies, Concordia University, Supervisors: A.D. Russell and P. Fazio.
Abstract:
Construction projects are large, complex and technologically advanced and the number of design decision to be made are growing. The nature of the design decisions changes as a project progresses and also varies for different types of investors. These decisions should satisfy the objectives of the investor, the designer, as well as the regulatory constraints. Major economic decisions are made at the front end of the project, while most of the technical design decisions are made at the latter stages (pre-design, design, construction). Vital economic decisions must be made at early stages of the project when minimum information is available and when the cost resulting from them cannot be accurately determined. The decisions made by individuals based on their personal experience cannot be accurate for large and complex engineering projects. The goal of this study is to contribute towards the development of a methodology for the building design problem which reflects the investor's views and provides the designer (architect/engineer) with enough information to make better decisions throughout the design phase by selecting design alternatives which will optimize the performance of the system as measured by some combination of financial, technical and user criteria subject to specified constraints. This thesis presents a general framework for systematic analysis of the building design decision-making problem. In the design practice, first, the building system is decomposed into a series of subsystems/components. They are designed by different design disciplines and then integrated to constitute the building. Similarly, the performance measures can be decomposed into different components and integrated to measure the performance of the overall building. In this study, the main emphasis is placed on the financial performance measures. The deterministic and probabilistic cost models for capital cost and future costs components are developed, incorporating uncertainties involved in forecasting the future. The time variation of the uncertainty level in the future costs component as well as the effect of maintenance policies on the future performance of the building system are studied and their mathematical formulations are presented. A four stage design alternative selection process is developed that employs the preference technique and the concept of multiplicative utility function. The use of this methodology has been investigated through a case study.
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