Structural Design and Project Management: a Multi-Criteria Analysis to select the optimal seismic retrofit strategy for systems of complex buildings

The selection of the optimal strategy to seismically upgrade an existing building is a difficult problem. The difficulty increases in case of a complex buildings system with different strategic requirements in terms of organization layout and structural features. The questions concerns issues such as the complexity to combine management and technical strategies, especially in situations of comparable costs, and the selection of the optimal strategy in a range of possible solutions. It is demonstrated that the best way for influencing final cost obtaining stakeholders’ satisfaction is to intervene at the beginning of Design Stages. In this contribution we present the implementation of a structured methodology of project management supported by Information Technology for the constructability performance evaluation of different seismic retrofit scenarios in order to choose the optimal retrofit solution in a complex buildings system. Evaluation criteria, using different constructability attributes, combined with evaluation systems are used to grade the different retrofit strategies. The procedure intends to control building management during constructive phases since the early stage of the project. This is possible through the simulation of construction site in all the different prefigured scenarios. Managing the results in some specific tables, with a specific evaluation system it is possible to assess alternative management strategies. Similarly, taking information from a preset database, the procedure grades technical strategies. Finally combining structural and constructive strategies, the optimal retrofit solution is chosen. Business Intelligence –mathematical models and decision making systems- applied to BIM technology for optimizing construction process during design phase is further future development in the industrial perspective.