Hypermedia: An application of BSE systems under a collaborative design environment

Refurbishment of a shopping centre is thought to be one of the most challenging projects for a building services engineer (BSE). Many projects are unique nature, and client requirements frequently change in an unpredictable manner. The tracking of original design intent, which is essential for decision-making when reviewing design change, is frequently a frustrating task. The design activities of a typical shopping centre improvement project undertaken by a multi-disciplinary project team of the Hong Kong Housing Authority are investigated. Research experience in different areas that address the issue of complex problem solving, as well as collaborative design, is also referenced and scrutinized. A literature survey in the hypermedia field indicates that hypermedia is an appropriate environment for collaborative tasks. By bringing together these research results and previous studies in the application of hypermedia for preliminary building services engineering design, a conceptual model of a four-level architecture that represents the collaborative design activities for developing a client's brief of a shopping centre refurbishment project is proposed. The challenges and opportunities of the hypermedia paradigm such as the author-reader relationship and the compatibility between information type and information container, which gives rise to the identification of key functions necessary for realization of the conceptual model into a prototype model, the Collaborative Design Hypermedia Model (CDHM), are explored. Various types of hypermedia authoring tools have been considered and HyperCard using Macintosh OS is chosen for the implementation. The CDHM prototype is evaluated using real project information. Project team members who participated in similar practice design work reviewed the model. The concepts and arguments that support the construction of CDHM have also been presented in three different International conferences as well as one construction IT journal. The majority of the feedback is supportive and positive. In conclusion, hypermedia is a pragmatic option that points to a direction for developing collaborative design tools in building services engineering applications.