A Conceptual Model of a Computer Mediated Asynchronous Collaborative Design Environment

Architectural design practice is a collective work of different levels of expertise. Collaborative design relies on seamless meshing of specialists with different levels of expertise, skills and views. Research oncollaborative design suggests various methodologies for supporting synchronous or asynchronous communicative practices of designers in reviewing and analyzing design decisions at different stages of thedesign process. However, they do not address the provision of an action platform that would enable collaborative group decision making in architectural design. There are four requirements for this platform:1) sharing of design decisions among designers, 2) sharing of design rationale among designers, 3) detecting conflicts among design decisions, and 4) sharing of designers responses to design decisions. This paper presents a conceptual model of an asynchronous collaborative design environment that implements methodologies for addressing these requirements