A cost-based information model for an interior design in a large-scale housing project

Abstract

In a large-scale housing development project with hundreds or thousands of similar apartment units, unexpected cost overruns occur due to option changes. Even changing small details in the apartment plan can have a large follow-on effect as the change is implemented in hundreds or thousands of apartment units in the whole project. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the costs during the decision-making process for interior design options in an apartment unit plan. To perform a cost review for a housing project with a uniform apartment plan, it is necessary to manage the information on the basic apartment plan, which forms the interior information. In this study, we developed an information model to support cost-based decision making in the interior design phase. An interior library was developed by analyzing the relationship of the housing project hierarchy and interior information attributes. The proposed model was validated in a case study to show that the model could support the decision-making process of various project participants by providing real-time cost information when the interior design was planned or changed.