Captivity or Flexibility: Complexities in a Dimensional Customization System

Abstract

Houses are essentially one-of-a-kind products that should reflect individualized differences of inhabitants who live in them. Homebuyers and homebuilders alike are thus captivated by the difficulties of housing customization. Achieving customer satisfaction depends on the flexibility of customized solutions, though the challenge of flexibility lies in the complexity of design validation. Constraints may be seen as design limitations, but they could provide for the efficiency of design validation. This paper addresses the complexities in the adoption of mass customization in the housing industry, and presents a dimensional customization system which would effectively use building information modeling (BIM) software, parametric design, and automatic verification of dimensional constraints to merge customization and validation.