D-ART for collaboration in evaluating design alternatives

Abstract

Evaluating design ideas is an integral part of designing built environments. It involves multiple stakeholders with diverse backgrounds reviewing design solutions by studying their form and performance data. Although there are computational systems for supporting evaluation tasks, they are either highly specialised for designers or configured for a particular workflow with limited functions. We developed a Design Analytics method aiming at a collaborative and data-driven evaluation of alternatives in the design-evaluate-feedback cycle. Adopting this approach, we introduce D-ART as a prototype system composed of customisable Web interfaces for presenting design alternatives, enabling stakeholders to participate in data-informed discourse on alternatives and providing feedback to the design team. Its system design considers requirements gathered through literature review, critical analysis of the existing systems and collaboration with our industry partners. Finally, we assessed D-ART’s design through an expert review evaluation, which generally reported positive results on the system’s goals.