A Decision Support System (DSS) for constructability assessment in seismic retrofit of complex buildings

Choosing the optimal strategy for the seismic retrofit of an existing building is a difficult problem. This difficulty increases in the case of complex buildings systems with different strategic requirements in terms of organization layout and structural features. This paper contributes to solving this complexity by combining management and technical strategies, especially in situations of comparable times and costs. It is demonstrated that the best way to obtain final results that are consistent with the initial requirements is to intervene at the beginning of the design stage. To this end the implementation of a Decision Support System (DSS) aided by Information Technology (IT) is presented for making a constructability assessment of the seismic retrofit of complex buildings. Different seismic retrofit scenarios compete to be the optimal retrofit solution. Several evaluation systems are combined with classic constructability-based tools to produce an organic framework. A rule-based engine that utilizes this framework can be implemented on top of user-friendly software. The DSS intends to control building management by prefiguring a real ongoing building execution after the early stages of the project. This is made possible by using the simulation of site safety layout in all compatible scenarios. By managing the output data of IT models it is possible to assess both management and structural strategies. In the end the DSS combines them to choose the most favorable overall solution. Looking towards future development, it can be seen that applications of a BIM Platform integrated with the proposed DSS have considerable potential in construction management practice.