Early Stage Architectural Design Practice Perspectives on Life Cycle Building Performance Assessment
Licentiate thesis, 2023

Architectural practitioners can avoid negative social and environmental impacts of new construction by making decisions supported by impact quantification during design processes. However, most software tools developed for such quantification see little use in practice, especially in early design stages when decisions have the greatest influence. To identify ways for software developers to overcome this situation, a thorough literature meta-review of previously performed tool reviews was combined with interviews applying a practice lens. The first key finding is that a possible explanation for the low tool uptake in practice could be a missing practice perspective in previous tool development efforts. In a literature meta-review of publications on life cycle building performance tools identifying previously applied perspectives, most previous tool reviews were found to support tool development and selection, while disregarding how tools can be integrated in existing practices and design processes.  As a proposed solution, a framework for defining software requirements using a practice perspective was developed. The second key finding is that a practice perspective could be applied during software development by implementing qualitative methodologies. Nine architectural practitioners in Sweden, Norway and France were interviewed using the interview to the double, a projective technique in which the interviewee is asked to describe their next workday in detail so that their tasks can be assumed by an imagined body double. The design activities described by the respondents were sequenced into user narratives which could serve as starting points for participatory software development processes within the architectural practice. The outcomes - a proposed framework for practice-centric software requirements, and a proposed methodology for collecting these requirements using a practice lens - indicate a research direction toward software development efforts which aligns with design process, architectural practice, and tool user needs. In the next stage of the research this direction will be pursued through application of the developed methodologies in participatory development case studies in early-stage architectural design practice.

Building performance

Architecture

Life cycle assessment

Participatory software development

Ethnographic interview

Early design stages

Literature review

ED, Hörsalsvägen 11
Opponent: Clarice Bleil de Souza, Cardiff University, United Kingdom

Author

Toivo Säwén

Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Building Technology

Critical perspectives on life cycle building performance assessment tool reviews

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews,;Vol. 197(2024)p. 114407-

Review article

Säwén, T., Sasic Kalagasidis, A. & Hollberg, A. Early Architectural Design Stage User Narratives - Applying a Practice Lens to Life Cycle Building Performance Software Needs.

Mainstreaming holistic life cycle performance optimisation in early design stages of buildings

Swedish Energy Agency (51715-1), 2021-01-01 -- 2024-12-31.

Subject Categories

Architectural Engineering

Computer and Information Science

Civil Engineering

Construction Management

Architecture

Environmental Analysis and Construction Information Technology

Software Engineering

Human Computer Interaction

Building Technologies

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Innovation and entrepreneurship

Lic / Architecture and Civil Engineering / Chalmers University of Technology: 2023:11

Publisher

Chalmers

ED, Hörsalsvägen 11

Online

Opponent: Clarice Bleil de Souza, Cardiff University, United Kingdom

More information

Latest update

6/13/2024