Toward a Supporting KM Model of Concept Generation in Small Architectural Firms

Abstract

Design is an activity that formulates, physically and mentally, the “environment” of human (designer and user) and the “artifact” interaction. To develop the mentioned “interaction” it is vital to understand the mechanism of the design and designers’ behavior and approaches as a manageable knowledge-based outlook. According to our literature review, there is not any specific integrated model based on Knowledge Management (KM) and sharing information explaining the “Architectural Creation and Conceptualization”. In this paper, it has been emphasized that architectural design is a creative process of converting knowledge and information into products and/or services (Durst et al., 2014), based on requirements into an upper level of awareness as the product concept and capturing the new knowledge as the solutions which are complete, clear, and consistent. Regardless the normative considerations, an organizational framework based on knowledge for architecture SMEs, can improve the overall performance of the architecture design enterprises. The objective of this article is to propose the need of a new approach toward “Architectural Design Process Syntax” (Yousefi, 2014) based on the developing a KM visual system/model illuminating the managerial approach in the process. The final Visual KM model could be used as a conceptual reference for architectural design process in architectural small and medium offices (SMEs). The authors have mainly followed the literature study, task analysis based on interviews and questionnaires and also visual models, as the assessment and result methodology. This article also reflects the lack of application of the key knowledge management initiatives in architecture SMEs and highlights the essential of a managerial approach toward the question by presenting some potential line of research.