Design optimization during the different design stages

The A/E/C (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) industry is very traditional. In contrast to other industries (e.g. car or ship industry) no prototypes are trialled and tested before manufacturing. Each building is unique, thereby excluding large scale production. Over the past thirty years, computers have become ubiquitous even in the AEC industry. Yet in building design we are still exchanging data and making design decisions as a century ago, with paper drawings and reports. Although building design support tools are used for design confirmation at the end of the design process, important decisions are already made in the conceptual design stage. This paper reports an ongoing research which focuses on the different stages of the design process, their needs and key issues. Depending on the distinction of the design stages, literature review was done in the field of Multi-objective evolutionary algorithms. The variability in the definition of their fitnessfunction, the difference of inheritance, mutation etc. could add benefit to one specific design stage. The paper finishes with indicating trends for future work.