Introduction to Proactive Design. Toward the implementation of BIM methodology for managing complexity in architectural projects.

The opportunities provided by the introduction of IT tools into the building process have not brought yet substantial changes in building design process, which is still anchored to traditional process paradigm. That is, design phases are rigidly subdivided in “boxes”, that contain the knowledge required to related phases, while others are reciprocally separated by semantic barriers. Moreover, differently from other industrial sectors where the quality is verified by means of prototypes to be tested and improved, in construction sector the quality cannot be assured as those methodologies, because each building is, de facto, the prototype of itself. It is needed to define a new design paradigm, based on advanced methodologies and digital simulation tools, capable to predict in advance design and construction behaviors. To reach this objective, an IT simulative system based on concurrent Hybrid Actor is presented. The outcome of this approach is an optimized design process.