Improving design coordination for building projects. II: A collaborative system

The objective of this paper is to utilize recent advances in information te chnology and computer collaboration tools to improve coordination and incre ase productivity in the design of building projects. Based on a structured information model, presented in a companion paper, a collaborative design s ystem is developed incorporating (1) a client-server environment for repres enting building data, recording design rationale, and effectively managing design changes; and (2) Internet-based collaboration tools for sharing docu ments, reviewing changes, and conferencing among remote design participants . Implementation issues and the perceived changes imposed on the traditiona l design process are discussed, and an example application is worked to dem onstrate the applicability and features of the developed prototype. The dev elopments made in this paper provide guidelines for modeling complex inform ation-dependent processes in the construction domain.