Mass-Customisation: applicability and complications in building industry

Mass-Customisation as a well-known strategy in manufacturing industries is still very new to the building industry and seems to have a lot to offer in this domain. Benefiting from the extensive literatures in other industries and few scattered efforts which have been done in the area of building industry (mainly targeting the two-dimensional plan-based issues) this research will aim to focus on the outer skin of the buildings, namely the building envelopes. Having a critical point of view this paper tries to set the scene for the undertaken research. It first of all will look at the basic accepted terms and definitions widely used in the literature of Mass-Customisation to check out the achievements so far. Then it tries to have a comparative look on the two fields; the building and the other pioneering industries in this regard. Analytical comparison of the two fields in terms of both the similarities and differences will show the way towards achieving the particular aims of this project. It will subsequently outline the purposes of the project, the feasibilities and obstacles in this way and the most likely future steps to be taken to establish a new systematic customer-based approach in designing building envelopes utilising the capacities and benefits of Mass-Customisation as a design enabling tool.