Abstract
Over the last decades, technological advancements were carried out with a great pace and that forced industries to drastic changes and paradigm shifts. These advancements provide new opportunities that arise with their new requirements. Due to some of these requirements, AEC industry unwittingly caused some crucial global issues which are gaining momentum exponentially, cannot be ignored anymore. The main reason of this situation is identified as many significant decisions which directly affect the performance of the building and the relationship of the building with natural and built environment are taken, even if there is no certain and valid information. The focus of the study is to discuss and evaluate the collected data and the obtained findings from previously implemented 5 case studies with 25 unique participants in a same context to re-evaluate and understand how BIM can help designers in the early stages of architectural design, most particularly in decision making processes. In addition, we also focus on investigating what opportunities it provides, what drawbacks it causes and what he user feedbacks about using the tool in these stages are. The focus of this study is not to offer an alternative way for traditional design practices but to explore if these kinds of tools have advantages for conceptual designing and/or design supporting. To achieve these aims, we have used quantitative (questionaire), qualitative (pure observation, participant observation, in-depth interviews and focus groups) and protocol analysis (retrospective analysis) methods.
Ömer Halil Çavuşoğlu