ABSTRACT
Co-operative design activity is an increasingly important aspect of architectural practice. Large, top-down design practices are structured so that designers of different levels of experience and skills can work together. The computational aspect of such practices consists of many components which include modelling and analysis amongst other things, such as databases and document processing. Since major design decisions are typically made in the early stages of design, this is when the analysis of various alternatives relating to different technical disciplines needs to be carried out. Comparative costs of these alternatives also need to be estimated at this time. Through the standardisation of CAD input/output formats, it is now possible to integrate several software applications; for example, those that deal with modelling, energy analysis, and cost.
