Computational tools for building services design - professional's practice and wishes

This paper describes interviews conducted to understand the use of computational tools in daily design practice. The interviews form one part of a research project aimed at better informed design decision. This project also includes a review of state of the art building design support software and design process observations. A group of 15 world leading building services professionals were interviewed about their individual experience with computational tools during the design process. The outcome of the interviews was used to identify potential shortcomings of state of the art computational tools and causes for the limited success of integrating computational support to the daily design practice. Finally, guided by the importance of the early design stages, the paper argues that the use of appropriate computational tools has the potential to more effectively support the decision making process.