ABSTRACT
Nowadays buildings are much more complex than ever and many diverse skills are needed to design them. During the design phase we have the greatest opportunity to influence the final cost of the constructed facility (Austin et al. 2001). A change for the better in a project is least costly whilst it is still at the design stage. Traditional approaches to the management of design are not sufficient as they have evolved more slowly than the industry and society as a whole (Gray andHughes 2001). Nonetheless, decisionsmade at this stage, particularly those involving costs and speeds, are often based on subjective judgement, rules of thumb and familiarity (Idrus and Newman 2002).
