Structural Practices within Integrated Building Design and Construction

Abstract

Building-focused structural engineering has been an advanced user of computational technologies over the last 3 decades. During this time, there was still a lack of integration among the participants involved in the structural design, which obstructs advancements in the structural design process. To address this, the creation of an integrated structural process model (ISPM) was formulated to promote advances in the design of structural systems through collaboration and integration among participants. The resulting ISPM is overarching in nature in that it is not specific to a structural material or system, but its scope is comprehensive because it encompasses a project from planning through construction. Within the ISPM are tasks to complete the structural processes, data-driven information exchanges among participants, and holistic representations and descriptions for methods and tools to perform the processes. The broad architectural/engineering/construction (A/E/C) impact of the structural level within the ISPM is that it prescribes an iterative manner of selecting, narrowing, and refining a system to meet the program demands and then optimizes it for efficiency and construction.