Why is the building design process so manual — and what can we do about it?

Definitions and Problems

Put simply, the engineering design process is a series of stages engineers follow to solve a problem. In this article, we’ll focus on the series of stages engineers follow in building design.

This leads us to our first problem: the engineering design process in building design is poorly automated. This results in issues not only in the design process but also on the construction phase. There are four key reasons as to why the engineering design process is so far behind:

The building design process is a multi-step process

Let’s turn to RIBA Plan of work 2013 so we can look at the stages of a
building project:

Stages 1–4 are closely connected with building design.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these:

Every stage depends on the previous one. It is quite easy to build up errors and flaws. For example, in the end, if the customer says: “Let’s change Rhombicuboctahedron to Dodecahedron”, the process would probably start from the beginning!

The building design process involves multiple roles

Let’s list the main roles involved in the scope of work:

• Architectural Designer
• Structural Engineer
• MEP Engineer (Electrical, HVAC, Building Services)
• Project Manager
• Cost consultant

It is quite difficult to define the correct process for this ecosystem. There are different processes and workflows for every type of building (architect-led, engineer-led). Also, the task in many cases overlaps with each other working in several disciplines at the same time. So, as a rule, we have collisions and errors.

This is a common problem for every field of work — and building design is no exception.

The building design process has different delivery systems

• Design Bid Build
• Design Build

This aspect seriously affects the building design process.

It is difficult for companies to change their delivery system. For example, to suddenly start issuing documentation to the construction site, when you never did before, would take a long time to arrange. Therefore, the building design process must be flexible and adapt with time.

The building design process depends on the country of implementation

This is why outsourcing is not common in the field of building design. Every country has its own building codes and cultural features.

Concerning this, there is no worldwide community in the building design sphere. For example, the presence of such a community in IT allows it to grow so quickly.

What do we do about it?

In fact, the answer is obvious. It would be difficult to cover the whole sphere of building design and offer a solution to every problem. Therefore, we must select each process and upgrade them separately. By “upgrade”, we mean automate and then optimise the process.

Actually, there has been a certain amount of automation around for a while. Specifically, CAD and CAE systems — examples of using computer software to aid in design and engineering analysis tasks. But these days, building design processes should be further accelerated by IT infrastructure, from input to output.

Take a real-life example:

Imagine an architect-led design-build project. Roles involved in that process would include structural engineer, architectural designer and MEP engineer. We have some input data from the customer and the main goal is to get a developed design like a BIM model.

Any design phase is the conversion of one data model to another. Let’s imagine that we have architectural and MEP models and we want to design the structural part of the whole model. In this case, we can break the structural engineering process into stages:

We can define the concrete model from the Architectural Model.

Transforming the concrete model to the Analytical Model is a purely geometric process, which takes into account structural concepts and features.

If we know the location of the building, we also can obtain environmental loads (wind, snow, thermal). If we know the building type (functional category of units), we also obtain live loads. And finally, if we know the architectural model, we can clearly define dead loads. All these loads plus structural constraints give us an accurate Loads Model.

Let’s connect loads and analytical models. This gives us a Design Scheme.

And that’s all we need for FEA analysis, which will give us our Actions Model.

And then we have building codes like deterministic straight algorithms. When we programmatically code those algorithms, we can get calculated structures. This enables us to design them — to add rebar into concrete structures using special structural concepts and rules — and we get the Reinforced Concrete Model.

So, using BIM technology and working closely with IT infrastructure we can upgrade the whole sphere of structural engineering. Then we need to apply this to every step of the building design process.