Purpose & research questions: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the roleand influence trend institutes have on the decision a designer makes in the designand development of a garment/product’s lifecycle. Theoretical approach: The theoretical framework is based on the theories ofsustainability and trends but also on previous studies and models concerning thefashion design process and the environmental aspects of a garment’s lifecycle. Research Approach: The research uses a qualitative method based on multiple casestudies as research design. Conclusion: This research reveals that trend institutes have little or no influence atall for small, independent and high-end fashion designers, especially in sustainablefashion design because trend institutes are not perceived as knowledgeable enough oradvocates, yet. However, it is important to bear in mind the need to maintain thepicture of the high-end fashion designer as the one and only fashion contributor.Furthermore, The research evidences that there is no such thing as sustainabilitycommunication at trend institutes.

Decisions made at the early stage of building and settlement design can greatly influence the energy performance of the built environment. However, the type of feasible design intervention and their impact strong depends on project: if it is a new development or a re-development, whether the setting of the project is urban or rural, etc. Utilizing Bysjöstrand EcoVillage as a case, the aim of this thesis is to improve the energy performance of a new development at its early design stage through the passive and active use of solar energy. The study evaluated the energy saving potential of various passive solar design strategies as well as the solar energy potential of the new development. The steps taken to reduce the energy consumption are focused on the annual heating demand of buildings, since it accounts for more than a half of the total energy consumed by the village. The energy saving potential of the following passive solar design approaches were considered: building siting, building orientation, windows-to-wall ratio (WWR) analysis and insulation thickness optimization from the economic perspective. Furthermore, an assessment of energy generation potential from on-site photovoltaic (PV) systems was conducted. The financial viability of each building’s PV system was also conducted. According to the results, the evaluated passive solar design strategies can reduce the annual heating energy consumption close to 17 %. Regarding onsite energy generation, electricity from roof-installed PV systems can cover over 100% of the annual energy consumption estimated for the residential lighting and equipment within the eco-village. In summary, this study has demonstrated that with the above design considerations a 50 % reduction of energy consumption from the utility grid is possible. This study is useful for architects, energy engineers, and other parties who are involved in residential buildings energy performance optimization.

Decisions made at the early stage of building and settlement design can greatly influence the energy performance of the built environment. However, the type of feasible design intervention and their impact strong depends on project: if it is a new development or a re-development, whether the setting of the project is urban or rural, etc. Utilizing Bysjöstrand EcoVillage as a case, the aim of this thesis is to improve the energy performance of a new development at its early design stage through the passive and active use of solar energy. The study evaluated the energy saving potential of various passive solar design strategies as well as the solar energy potential of the new development. The steps taken to reduce the energy consumption are focused on the annual heating demand of buildings, since it accounts for more than a half of the total energy consumed by the village. The energy saving potential of the following passive solar design approaches were considered: building siting, building orientation, windows-to-wall ratio (WWR) analysis and insulation thickness optimization from the economic perspective. Furthermore, an assessment of energy generation potential from on-site photovoltaic (PV) systems was conducted. The financial viability of each building’s PV system was also conducted. According to the results, the evaluated passive solar design strategies can reduce the annual heating energy consumption close to 17 %. Regarding onsite energy generation, electricity from roof-installed PV systems can cover over 100% of the annual energy consumption estimated for the residential lighting and equipment within the eco-village. In summary, this study has demonstrated that with the above design considerations a 50 % reduction of energy consumption from the utility grid is possible. This study is useful for architects, energy engineers, and other parties who are involved in residential buildings energy performance optimization.

Purpose: BIM have been criticised as a standalone framework and the believe is that the next step in BIM development is cloud computing. The technology simplify planning of a sustainable construction and hasten the building process through a collaborative friendly information management among different project actors. The implementation of the technology hasn’t been that noticeable since companies are struggling to understanding the technologies contribution. The goal of this research is therefore to investigate the potential of using cloud technology in architects daily work with room finish schedule. Method: To answer the goal of the study, interviews about room finish schedules have been made with five architect companies to collect empirical data. The company's internal documents of room finish schedule have been analysed and the research also makes a literature study and an observation of the cloud service BIMeye. Findings: The study shows that the main differences between an analogue and digital approach are: the link to the model, input of information and management of revisions. The companies have generally a positive attitude towards the technology, but there are doubts about changing their way of working. The cloud service BIMeye meets the companies needs and has great potential to make several tasks, that are considered time consuming in today´s work, more efficient, such as lay-up of rooms, input of information, review of conflicting documents and management of revisions. This mainly through the database's connection to the model and the database's way of managing information more automated. Implications: The conclusion that can be made is that great potential is seen with cloud services as a working method for producing room finish schedules. The transition process to cloud services implies a change of working method but not in the final result. Where cloud services entail additional work in the model to enable a connection to the description, but at the same time contributes to an automatic input of information about rooms. Another change in working method is the ability of cloud services to create parameters that differs from the otherwise analogue paper-work. Revisions in the database get a break through throughout the whole description, in contrast to individual adjustments in the document. Recommendations as a result of the study is to inform companies about the possibilities and impact the technology has on their work. In order to achieve an overall perspective in the industry, new solutions are required so that companies see internal profits with the implementation. Limitations: The result is considered to be applicable to other architect firms since it has appeared from interviews and document analyses that the companies work in similar ways. However, whether the result of the test of BIMeye can be applied to other cloud services is uncertain. The research’s limitation to disregard investment cost has restrict the study as it is a significant factor when implementing new technology. / Syfte: BIM har kritiserats för sitt ensamstående ramverk och nästa steg i BIM utvecklingen anses vara molnteknologin. Tekniken förenklar planering av ett hållbart byggande och påskyndar byggprocessen genom en mer sammarbetsvänlig informationshantering mellan olika projektdeltagare. Implementeringen av tekniken har inte varit så märkbar, detta då företagen har svårt att förstå dess bidrag. Målet med arbetet är därför att undersöka möjligheterna att använda molnteknologin i arkitekters arbete med rumsbeskrivningar. Metod:  För att besvara målet har intervjuer om rumsbeskrivningar gjorts på fem arkitektföretag för att samla in empiri. Företagens interna rumsbeskrivningsdokument har analyserats och i undersökningen görs även en litteraturstudie och en observation av molntjänsten BIMeye. Resultat: Studien visar att de största skillnaderna mellan ett analogt och digitalt tillvägagångsätt är kopplingen till modell, inmatning av information och hantering av revideringar. Företagen har överlag en positiv inställning till tekniken men det finns tveksamheter till att ändra sitt arbetssätt. Molntjänsten BIMeye uppfyller de önskemål som företagen har och har stor potential till att effektivisera flertalet arbetsmoment som anses tidskrävande i dagens arbete, såsom uppläggning av rum, inmatning av information, granskning av motstridiga handlingar och hantering av revideringar. Detta främst genom databasens koppling till modell och databasens sätt att hantera information mer automatiserat. Konsekvenser: Slutsatsen är att det finns en stor potential med molntjänster som arbetsmetod vid framtagning av rumsbeskrivningar. Övergångsprocessen till molntjänster innebär förändring av arbetsmetod, men inte i slutresultat. Där molntjänster medför ett merarbete i modellen för att möjliggöra en koppling till beskrivningen, men medför samtidigt automatisk inmatning av information om rum. En annan förändring i arbetsmetod är molntjänsters möjlighet att skapa parametrar som skiljer sig från det annars analoga skrivarbetet. Revideringar i databasen får genomslag i hela beskrivningen, tillskillnad från enskilda justeringar i dokumentet. Rekommendationer till följd av arbetet blir att upplysa företagen om teknikens möjligheter och påverkan på arbetet. För att uppnå ett helhetsperspektiv i branschen behövs nya lösningar så att företagen ser interna vinningar med implementeringen. Begränsningar: Resultatet anses applicerbart på fler arkitektföretag än Krook & Tjäder då det framgått från intervjuer och dokumentanalyser att företagen arbetar på liknande sätt. Däremot huruvida resultatet från testet av BIMeye går att applicera på andra molntjänster är oviss. Arbetets avgränsning till att bortse från investeringskostnader har begränsat arbetet då det är en betydande faktor vid implementering av ny teknik.

The construction industry has a clear process it follows therefore the working method within it also has become rigid. Through long time the stage-gate model has been used by the project management. Construction projects are often complex, have long stages and long decisions routes. When a stage is completed questions have been raised and lead to that change is needed to be made before moving on to next stage. This takes time, costs more than calculated and the function gets compromised. The purpose with this thesis is to investigate if the current project management approach can be performed more efficiently by applying agile project management to the design stage. This thesis is performed with a qualitative research approach. It started with a thoroughly literature review of relevant topics such as agile project management, the construction process and change management. When a solid base of knowledge was gathered about the research area an interview study was conducted and a survey was sent out. The findings are a result from the interview study and the survey. The interview questions and findings are divided into four focus areas of agile project management which are project planning, meeting structure, group collaboration and communication. The discussion connects the literature with the information from the interviews and the discussion is presented with the reflections from the authors. The conclusions present the answers on the research questions. The final chapter about further research is presenting perspectives that have not been answered in this thesis. The thesis concludes that project management methods within construction projects are not as rigid as it is described in the literature. The lack of knowledge and awareness of other working methods creates a culture of "this is how it always has been done" within the four focus areas of agile project management. All of the reference projects were time pressured and it was in those situations where ii most tendencies to adjust management method was shown. The studied projects had fixed meeting structures and when emergency occurred, extra meetings were held. The project management teams had good collaboration due to that they were co-located and not too big groups. The co-location also facilitated the communication which was compared to team members that were not co-located and struggled with the communication. The communication generally worked well vertically and was struggling horizontally. Agile project management cannot be achieved to 100% and it is difficult to apply all of its characteristics on the construction industry since it was developed from the software industry which has other traits than construction. On the other hand, agile project management is a mindset of continuously improvement and flexibility of the used working methods which can be used by the construction industry. The construction industry has to follow some specific processes such as applying for building permits and is affected by political decisions. Therefore the current project management methods are restricted to follow certain frameworks. The framework is hard to change though it leaves space for changed methods and attitudes within the framework and the design stage. All types of construction projects can use the agile mindset and it is important that the whole organization relates to the agile mindset to achieve greatest outcome. Steps towards agile can be done in current projects by emphasis more on reconciliations and let the projects progression decide the meeting structure. / Byggprocessen är en väletablerad process inom byggindustrin som byggprojekt genomgår. Genom de tydliga och historiska riktlinjerna som processen följer har byggindustrin fått anseendet att vara stel och konservativ. För att hantera byggprocessen har projektledningen följt Stage-gate modellen med tydliga delmål och beslutsgrindar. Byggprojekt är ofta komplicerade och stora vilket leder till långa beslutsvägar. När ett projekt når en grind vid ett avslut av ett delmål uppstår ofta frågor som leder till förändringar av delmålet. För att behandla förändringarna så behöver processen genomgå ett omtag, att göra om delmålet innan processen kan gå vidare till nästa delmål. Omtagen tar tid, kostar pengar och det kompromissas med funktionen. Denna uppsats har som mål att undersöka om den aktuella projektledningsmetoden kan effektiviseras genom att introducera agil projektledning i projekteringen. Uppsatsen genomförs med en kvalitativ metod. Det första steget är att finna relevant litteratur om berörda ämnen som agil projektledning, byggprocessen och förändringsledning. Med fördjupad kunskap och förståelse inom ämnena genomfördes en intervjustudie och en enkät sändes ut. Resultaten identifierades från intervjuerna och svaren från enkäten. Intervjufrågorna och resultatet är uppdelat i fyra olika agila kategorier som anses gå att applicera på byggindustrin. Kategorierna är projektplanering, mötesstruktur, gruppsamarbete och kommunikation. Resultatet följs utav diskussionen som binder samman litteraturen med resultatet och författarnas reflektioner. Därefter presenteras slutsatsen och avslutningsvis rekommenderas frågeställningar till fortsatta undersökningar. Projektledningsmetoderna som används inom byggprojekt upplevdes inte lika stela som litteraturen beskriver dock fanns det lite kunskap och medvetenhet om andra typer av projektledningsmetoder. Avsaknaden är en bidragande faktor till att den upplevda kulturen anses vara konservativ. Inom de fyra kategorierna fanns det möjligheter till att arbeta mer agilt. När projekten är tidspressade visades mest benägenhet på att förändra projektledningsmetoden. Detta kunde ses tydligt på mötesstrukturen i projekten där den var fast ifrån början men blev mer rörlig då kritiska situationer uppstod. Gruppsamarbetet fungerade bra inom projektledningen för att de var samlokaliserade och inte för stora grupper. Detta underlättade även för en fungerande kommunikation då det märktes att de som inte var samlokaliserade hade svårigheter med kommunikationen. De horisontella kommunikationsvägarna hade generellt sett svårare att fungera än de vertikala kommunikationsvägarna. Eftersom agilt inte är en standard utan är ett arbetssätt som alltid strävar efter att förbättras är det svårt att uppnå ett 100 % agilt arbetssätt. Inom byggindustrin finns vissa ramverk som ska följas vilket gör att projektledningen begränsas. Med fasta ramverk finns lite utrymme för förändring men det finns möjlighet till att förändra processen och tankesättet inom ramverket. Alla typer av byggprojekt kan därför anamma delar av agil projektledning och för att uppnå största möjliga effekt gäller det att hela organisationen är engagerad. Andra enkla steg för att arbeta mer agilt inom projektledningen är att lägga mer vikt vid avstämningsmöten och låta projektets utveckling bestämma mötesstrukturen.

<p>Analiza arhitektonskih objekata u pogledu ispitivanja performansi aktuelna je oblast istraživanja u domenu arhitekture i urbanizma. U kontekstu BIM tehnologije i tehnologije virtuelne realnlosti formiran je model koji predviđa njihovu upotrebu u cilju poboljšanja procesa donošenja odluka u arhitektonskom projektovanju. Modelom je predviđena automatizacija analiza koje se mogu sprovesti na idejnom arhitektonskom projektu uz pomoć podataka koji se mogu dobiti korišćenjem BIM tehnologije. U okviru konceptualnog modela zasnovanog na metodu centralnog modela predviđene su višesturke analize od koje se mogu klasifikovati u jednu od tri grupe: Analiza objekta sa ispitivanjem svih ili većeg broja .ifc klasa, analiza pojedinih .ifc klasa i analiza spoljašnjih gabarita objekta. Prema pod-modelima predstavljena je analiza cene koštanja objekta, analiza energetske efikasnosti i analiza godišnje osvetljenosti objekta.</p> / <p>Performance based analysis of architectural structures has become an important area of research in the field of architecture and urban planning. The conceptual model is presented in context of BIM and virtual reality technology usage for decision making processes in architecture. The model defines automation of several analysis that can be performed in early design stage of architectural project using data collected from BIM technology software. Multiple analysis are defined in central model framework and classified into three groups: Analysis of the object with the examination of all or a large number of .ifc class, analysis of individual .ifc class and analysis of the external properties of structures. According to these sub-models, analysis of the cost estimate, analysis of energy efficiency and analysis of daylight illumination are presented in dissertation.</p>

To reduce the emissions from energy use, high demands are set on new buildings. Studies have shown big differences between predicted and actual energy performance. This gap makes it more difficult to reduce the energy use in buildings. The aim of this study is to discover if deviations occur before the building is put into use, and if it does, discuss the reasons for that.  In this study, energy performance for 20 multi-family houses have been compared between the early design stage and the production stage. The result of this study is that there are no major differences in energy use between the different documents. On the other hand, there are big differences in some of the parameters that the energy use is dependent on. The reasons of this are discussed later in this thesis. None of the investigated buildings had the same value of energy performance in the production stage as in the early stage. The parameter that has shown the greatest difference is space heating and hot water recirculation. The biggest correlation was found between the energy required by the fans and the buildings total energy use.

In this knowledge economy, organizations are leveraging their competence through the knowledge they possess. Managing knowledge will potentially retain the competence held by the organization if knowledge generated across its projects and units is captured, structured and reused. Even though many tools and techniques are proposed in the literature to support these activities, their adoption in industry has been meagre. This may be due to development of tools without basing them on substantial and careful descriptive studies. This raises the following research issues: the knowledge processes and knowledge sources available in organizations and their characteristics need to be understood better. To address these gaps, following objectives are addressed in this research: ♦ To understand the specific needs and capability of the organization for capture and reuse of product development knowledge and ♦ To evaluate various alternative supports for capture and structure of relevant, evolving product development knowledge for reuse. To address these objectives, two observational studies were conducted in the organizations. To get a broader picture about the knowledge processes occurring in the organization, a KRIT model is proposed which is an acronym for Knowledge of solutions-Requirements-Interactions-Tasks, in which interactions of the designers with people and tools play the central role in processing knowledge during design. The KRIT model is validated through the demonstration of the existence of its nodes and links. From the observations it has been found that interactions ‘designer working with computer’, ‘two designers working with a computer’ and ‘two designers interacting with each other’ are most frequently occurred, and occupied most of the time during designing. Any tools to support knowledge capture and reuse should support these interactions such that capture and reuse can be intuitive and in-built in a natural way into a designer’s work habits. It is emphasized that there is a substantial need to increase the percentage of time spent by designers on capturing knowledge during the design process. This increase in time would lead to decrease in a designers’ time spent on knowledge acquisition and dissemination provided designers are capturing reusable knowledge. To answer capture and reuse of knowledge in detail in the observational studies, a new taxonomy of knowledge is proposed. By linking the representations of argumentation, designer’s activities, and the artefact being designed, we argued that the expressiveness of this taxonomy is high compared to the others proposed in the literature. The taxonomy has three broad categories of knowledge: topics, classes, and activities. Based on the definitions of the factors used in the taxonomy and the analysis of the protocols, the factors in each group under each category are argued to be mutually exclusive. In order to study the links between the proposed categories and factors in the taxonomy of knowledge, a method for converting the questions and answers (from the protocol data) into a generic format is framed. The taxonomy is validated comprehensively, and is able to cover various stages of design. Most of the designers’ time was spent working with a CAD package, in which most of the kinds of knowledge mentioned in the proposed taxonomy of knowledge was neither captured not reused. The important observations noted by comparing the knowledge captured in the preliminary study and the main study are as follows: Compared to the preliminary study, process related information and knowledge are captured higher in the main study. In the main study behavioural related content is captured more; whereas in the preliminary study structural content is captured more. The factors organization, usage, maintenance and sales captured in the preliminary study are not at all captured in the main study. In order to assess the usefulness of the knowledge captured, the kinds of knowledge needs of designers were compared with the kinds of knowledge captured. The important observations about the knowledge needs are: Irrespective of the design stages, in almost 50% of the questions, designers interacted with others to know about old issues or proposals in both the studies. A designer’s time for designing would benefit considerably if the answers for these 50% of the old questions were captured and made available for retrieval in formal documents. In both the studies, proposals based questions played a vital role in the questions analyzed. It shows that considerable proportion of time was spent by the designers on validating, by asking questions, the answers known to them. In contrast to the preliminary study, the designers’ needs for process-related information or knowledge were much higher than that for product-related information or knowledge. Comparing the generic questions obtained from the knowledge needs and knowledge captured reveals that only 14% and 26% with product related content and only 10% and 11.3% of the process based content asked by designers during designing were captured in the preliminary and the main study. These results show that there is a mismatch between knowledge captured and knowledge needed by the designers. This may be one of the primary reasons for the poor usage of documents in the organization. The generic questions generated from the questions asked by the designers and various documents will act as a guideline to the designers for what knowledge and information should and should not to be captured. Due to restrictions in the observations, a questionnaire survey was conducted to achieve the objective to collect 10% of total number of employees’ perspectives about the issues considered in this research. The important observations from the analyses of the collected questionnaire are: Designers’ perceive all types of interactions as important and frequent for information generation and sharing. These results are contradictory to the personal observations in which only interactions ‘designer working with computer’ and ‘two designers working with a computer’ occurred frequently. This shows that designers are unable to identify the kinds of interaction which they perform in their daily activities. Due to this, the information processes occurring within these interactions are not perceptible to the designers. Designers perceive that they get the right information at the right time in only 4 or more out of 10 for most of the times. This perception illustrates there is substantial need for the development of support to satisfy the information needs of designers. Analyses of the types of questions reveal that the question asking behavior of the designers is not static; the major share of questions falling under the category ‘question from answer given’ could be interpreted as: designers often do not frame exact questions to fulfil their requirements; they grab the opportunity to take as much as knowledge as possible during an interaction. Analyses of the types of answers reveal that designers gave more inferences on their answers in order to give a better response, which in turn should help reduce the number of questions subsequently asked especially in the protocol coded as ‘new answer’. Two studies have been used to assess the effectiveness of seven tools for supporting knowledge capture and reuse. The important observations from the initial study are: Mobile E-Notes TakerTM is ranked higher because this equipment provides a blend of properties between the paper and computer. These observations stress the importance of features provided for knowledge generation, modification, capture and reuse in the system. The observations from analyzing the three top rated tools (Mobile E-Notes TakerTM, Tablet with viewing facility and Computer with RhinocerosTM CAD package) to understand influence of these tools on knowledge capture and reuse during conceptual designing are: The differences observed in the percentage of capture between the usage of the three tools demonstrate that tools have an influence on the knowledge capture activity. Even though none of the three tools capture adequate knowledge during designing, Mobile e-Notes TakerTM seems to be the best tool for capture compared to the other two tools, both in the original and redesign experiments. These results suggest that some other mechanisms should be added to these tools so that their effectiveness of capturing could be increased. One mechanism is to incorporate the proposed KRIT model and the taxonomy of knowledge during designing. This integration will be one of the good mechanisms to aid knowledge capture and reuse, because the knowledge capture will occur along with the knowledge creation process. We believe that through this integration the purpose to enhance the knowledge capture and reuse during the design process will be achieved.