Choosing a Company's Building Design: Models for Strategic Design Decisions

Abstract

Improving the linkage between real estate strategy and building design can help competitive business strategy. Differentiating building design from product design is important. Problems in making design choices derive from received paradigmatic knowledge that misrepresents the design decision processes. Architectural selection problems are explained with reference to design decision processes and dilemmas of testing the design. Because comparison is the underlying method of evaluation, the design competition is discussed as a model to evaluate the design of a company’s proposed high profile buildings in relation to corporate strategy. The Appendix describes the process and the recent and past history of competitions.