Design Process Definitions Design Process
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the design process. Markus 1969 and Maver 1970, French 1971, Pahl and Beitz 1986, Pugh and Morley 1988, Cross 1993 and Archer 1995 are just some of
them in architectural and engineering design domains, who had attempted to generate standardized design procedures Austin et al., 2001. Moreover, Austin 2001
expressed that conceptual design phase of any project is a vibrant, creative and dynamic period, which can be disorganized with incomplete exchange of information
between design team members. Whereas transfer of information, ideas and opinion is critical to the development of concepts, it needs to be understood and, ultimately,
managed Austin, 2001.
According to Fenevis et al. 2000 building design is an iterative process that follows three stages of refinement: conceptual design, preliminary design, and detailed
design. He stated that conceptual design is the first stage where the most important characteristics of the building are defined. Major decisions are made regarding the
building architectures and also salient features of the engineering support systems. During the conceptual phase of building design, as Fenves 2000 stated major
decisions are taken regarding the building type, occupancy, form, dimensions, and type of structural system, all of which have great impact on the final form,
constructability, cost, and overall performance of a building. Fenevis et al. 2000 believed that time and resources allocated to this phase are limited. Consequently,
designers perform conceptual design by intuition and experience rather than by exploring the vast space of possibilities in a systematic manner Fenevis et al., 2000.
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Wheeler unpublished, 1978 divided the life of an architectural construction project into nine major phases containing: 1 project master plan, 2 site analysis, 3
programming, 4 schematics, 5 design development, 6 construction documents, 7 bidding, 8 construction, 9 occupancy Chung, 1989. His model was presented
in matrix form which depicted the project phases, steps, and activities as performed by each of the project participants such as the owner, the project manager, the design
manager, the construction manager, and so on. According to Wheeler the fourth, fifth, and sixth phases cover the design stage of a project and assist the determination of
many of the sub activities and outputs.