ABSTRACT
Today’s building facilities are becoming more complex and costly. The capital and operating costs of such facilities directly affect the profitability of the processes carried on within them. To assist in designing efficient buildings, considerable work had been focussed to date on developing sophisticated analy ses and design tools for the various subsystems which comprise a total building system (e.g., foundation, structure, mechanical, electrical, etc.). Some attention has also been directed toward the optimal design of these systems. For example, a great deal of work has been performed in the area of structural optimization, with weight or weight related cost being selected as the performance criterion.
