Integrated building design technology based on quality function deployment and axiomatic design methods: A case study

Abstract

By 2050, the EU aims to become a Union where buildings will no longer emit greenhouse gases. The traditional building design process is becoming ineffective in meeting new sustainability challenges, which calls for a fundamentally different and more advanced design process. The paper presents the newly developed technology of building conceptual design, which integrates the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and Axiomatic Design (AD) methods. The scope of the proposed design technology is to eliminate the drawbacks of traditional building design to ensure a smooth Integrated Building Design (IBD) among the project participants and a sustainable and customer oriented design solution. The validation of the technology has shown that, compared to the traditional design, it enables to decrease primary energy demand by 10 % with less design iterations to match the initial project requirements. The structured algorithm of the technology facilitated the communication between project groups. Nevertheless, the technology requires an additional team member – a design facilitator, which leads to additional expenses. The validation of the technology also highlighted that some limitations may appear due to the implementation of the Independence Axiom from AD. However, the technology is universal and can be easily adapted for different design areas outside of building design.