Utilization of simulation tools in early design phases through adaptive detailing strategies

Decisions taken at early stages of building design have a significant effect on the planning steps for the entire lifetime of the project as well as the performance of the building throughout its lifecycle (MacLeamy 2004). Building Information Modelling (BIM) could bring forward and enhance the planning and decision-making processes by enabling the direct reuse of data hold by the model for diverse analysis and simulation tasks (Borrmann et al. 2015). The architect today besides a couple of simplified simulation tools almost exclusively uses his know-how for evaluating and comparing design variants in the early stages of design. This paper focuses on finding new ways to facilitate the use of analytical and simulation tools during the important early phases of conceptual building design, where the models are partially incomplete. The necessary enrichment and proper detailing of the design model could be achieved by means of dialogue-based interaction concepts with analytical and simulation tools through adaptive detailing strategies. This concept is explained using an example scenario for design process. A generic description of the aimed dialog-based interface to various simulation tools will also be discussed in this paper using an example scenario.