Crisp and fuzzy advanced hierarchhy process for the design of an industrial building based timber and steel elements.

Abstract

Sustainable Development (SD) emerged in the late 90’s, as a response to severe environmental problems worldwide and the public pressure they created. SD introduced the notion of environmental and social consequences of anthropogenic activity, affecting the paradigm of ’business as usual’ and increasing the complexity of design and implementation of new, environmentally and socially responsible, strategies. Decision making under these new coordinates has to tackle with both quantitative and qualitative information, as well as the relationship between the two. A combination of different knowledge domains, and the different methodological options they introduce, is necessary for tackling complex problems. This research focuses on this (new) challenge, specifically for the construction sector. Two methods, crisp and fuzzy Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP), are used for the evaluation of the design of a (generic) industrial building. A decision making process is developed, where a problem hierarchy is created, expert knowledge is gathered and evaluated and final priorities of alternative solutions are produced, through a crisp and a fuzzy handling of data. The case study offers a first exploration, indicating the applicability and easy of use of the methods, presenting preliminary results and proposing further research trajectories.