Future direction for effective sustainable design

Abstract

This paper – as part of a broader research - summarizes the key findings of a survey based on an online questionnaire which has investigated existing insights, needs and expectations of architects about decision support tools (DSTs) to assess sustainability of buildings. The survey is conducted in Dutch context with architectural professionals. Furthermore, this paper underlines the major requirements for future improvement and development of support tools for architects in a sustainable design process. With the results we aimed to gather information that would help us to have an insight on current use of DSTs in several stages of the design process, preferred level of breadth and detail of information and knowledge by architects throughout the process of designing a high performance green building and the preferred format of information and knowledge presentation about sustainable design – extent and format of a possible decision support tool.