An Integrated Design Process: One Step Further?

Present paper is placed in the discussion about how sustainable measures are integrated in the design process by architectural offices. It presents results from interviews with four leading Danish architectural offices working with sustainable architecture and their experiences with it, as well as the requirements they meet in terms of how to approach the design process – especially focused on the early stages like a competition. The interviews focus on their experiences with working in multidisciplinary teams and using digital tools to support their work with sustainable issues. The interviews show that there is a difference in the experiences of the different offices. Architects taking an active part in the development of projects and tools in general have a better understanding of how to approach this. It is of course not surprising, because of a focused strategy towards this. However the most important thing it shows, is the importance of being able to understand the relations between architecture and its impact on environmental issues like energy consumption. Through an understanding of these relations the architects will be able to link energy consumption to building geometry and create solutions where the environmental measures cannot be discarded due to extra costs.