ITcon Vol. 12, pg. 61-71, http://www.itcon.org/2007/4

Space-centred information management approach to improve CAD-based healthcare building design

submitted:March 2006
revised:November 2006
published:January 2007
editor(s):Björk B-C
authors:Changfeng Fu, Dr.
School of Construction and Property Management, Salford University, UK
email: c.fu@salford.ac.uk

Joseph Tah, Professor
School of Construction and Property Management, Salford University, UK
email: j.tah@salford.ac.uk

Ghassan Aouad, Professor
School of Construction and Property Management, Salford University, UK
email: g.aouad@salford.ac.uk

Mike Kagioglou, Professor
School of Construction and Property Management, Salford University, UK
email: m.kagioglou@salford.ac.uk

John Zeisel, Dr.
Hearthstone Alzheimer Care, Ltd, USA
summary:This study focuses on developing a space-centred CAD tool to enable designers to effectively manage and implement the information of design guidance information and user requirements during design processes, especially for the stages of design briefing and conceptual design. It aims to structure and store design guidance and user requirements for healthcare building design into a relational database, and link them to relevant space entities in design plans. The tool is developed on the platform of Autodesk Architecture Desktop (ADT). It also enables users to store and retrieve pictures associated with textual information, because pictures have been always used by designers as an effective medium to represent and deliver design information and knowledge. This can give users directly visual and more understandable perceptions of the design guidance. The tool is fully embedded with Autodesk AutoCAD systems to ensure the application of this tool being fully merged with CAD-based design process. A set of design guidance about Alzheimer clinic built environments are adopted as a sample to demonstrate and validate the tool. Moreover, the scenario of expanding this application to more broad areas has also been foreseen.
keywords:space, CAD, design guidance, requirement.
full text: (PDF file, 0.755 MB)
citation:Fu C, Tah J, Aouad G, Kagioglou M and Zeisel J (2007). Space-centred information management approach to improve CAD-based healthcare building design, ITcon Vol. 12, pg. 61-71, https://www.itcon.org/2007/4