Constructional Designs of Architecture Students – Were Building Subsystems Successfully Integrated During the Project Process?

Integration problems between building subsystems designed by different specialists may arise when not properly coordinated. Alongside their design duties, architects often have control/coordination responsibility to avoid these. Gaining experience in integrating building subsystems is an objective of the Construction Project course in the Istanbul Technical University Bachelor of Architecture Program. Final submissions of the author-led groups were evaluated to determine design deficiencies and integration problems observed and to discuss students’ performance in subsystem integration. Using a classification framework generated for determining the types of subsystem integration, design deficiencies and integration problems based on literature, 20 student projects were reviewed in this respect. Drawings of each project for the architectural, structural, heating and plumbing systems were assessed within themselves and in pairs to find inconsistencies. Regarding the integration problems identified, opinions of a few professionals on their significance in causing rework were taken via a questionnaire to assist the discussions. Students’ performance was assessed using both quantitative findings regarding the number and type of design deficiencies and integration problems identified and professionals’ opinions. In total, 12 design deficiencies and 20 integration problems were identified. Among the deficiencies, the occurrence rate of errors was higher than that of the omissions (i.e. 61% and 39.2% respectively). Among the integration problems, the structural system was always a component of the subsystem pairs with a high occurrence rate of problems (i.e. >50%). Regarding different types of integration problems, omission was the least commonly observed problem followed by error, and soft and hard clashes respectively.