Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degrees of Master of Architecture

Uncertainties exist at every stage of the architectural process, from project inception to construction supervision, but it is usually during the pre-design phase that decisions must be made with the least amount of solid information. The focus of this thesis is an examination of methods for dealing with the complex and uncertain decision situations encountered in the pre-design phase. Both traditional and more recently developed techniques for dealing with uncertainty are explored, with separate chapters concentrating on estimating methods, decision analysis, and simulation. In the chapter on estimating, singleand multiple-parameter methods, deterministic and probabilistic systems, and hierarchical approaches are investigated. The section on decision analysis explains the method and also includes two case studies examined by the author. The third chapter, simulation, includes explanations and case studies, as well as suggestions for future applications research. Each method is explained in terms of how it works, what information it requires and where that information comes from, and what its advantages and disadvantages are. Information on practitioners' views on the use of analytic methods, gathered through interviews with local architects, is discussed in a separate chapter devoted to this subject. The concluding chapter summarizes the requirements for successful methods and also the barriers to implementation that may be encountered in practice. Thesis Supervisors: Edward B. Allen -,Associate Professor of Architecture _David B. Ashley &istant Professor of Civil Engineering