A Decision-Making Process for Selecting Building Envelope Assemblies

Abstract

Building Envelope (BE) design is a decision-making process that involves evaluating and selecting BE assemblies. In this study, a systematic decision-making process is developed for selecting BE assemblies in the BE design process. BE systems are composed of various assemblies, and each one must have certain attributes to satisfy several expected functions. Therefore, the selection problem of an Envelope Assembly may be considered a Multi Attribute Decision Making (MADM) problem. MADM methods can be used to select assemblies based on qualitative and quantitative attributes. Feasible alternatives are selected among all possible alternatives. Next, the relative importance of attributes are determined with the AHP method and alternatives are ranked with the TOPSIS method. A case study tests applicability of the proposed process. The proposed decision-making process can help designers achieve consistent results with preliminary information for BE assembly selection problems.