Plausibility in Early Stages of Architectural Design: A New Tool for High-Rise Residential Buildings

This paper analyzes the problem of the design of envelopes for high-rise isolated residential buildings. The phenomenon of envelope creation appears in the early stages of the architectural design. Variables that influence the final shape and size of such envelopes are then identified. This paper presents the state-of-the-art tools for the current solutions at the commercial and academic/scientific level. The variables identified in this research are the client’s needs, the urban code and architectural practice, and their specific components for the final creation of a new decision support system tool based on the building information modeling (BIM) software platform, to facilitate the work in the project development and drawing production stages. This tool generates several options for building envelopes according to the parameters required by the city Zoning Planning Commission. These options then lead to deliver reliable data and a geometry that can be analyzed in a timely fashion by the engineers, builders, architects, government, and clients in the early stages of the building’s design. The results show that use of specific information and communication technologies (ICT) tools in the early stages of a building design helps reduce the working time, increases confidence in the generated solution, and contributes to the exploration of alternatives in a short period of time.