The analysis of the usefulness of the details on the websites of the companies in the process of architectural detail design

Before the industrial revolution, architechts were seen to be the builders and the expert of craft design in many cultures and traditions. Nowadays this situation is not maintaining its validity too much, and the rapid development of building technologies makes it difficult for the architecht to have an interest on social issues, and responsible from the architectural projects and also being an expert on building technologies. Detailed design constitutes a small portion of the entire system; when architectural design is considered as a whole including many sub-processes such as preparation and investigation, concept design, volume organization, carrier system design, selection of the material. On the other hand, the rapid development of modern building techniques makes the detailed design process much more complicated that requires material and system knowledge for the drafters. In the architectural design process, at the stage of the detailed design of applications, there are two different detailed design methods; the original detailed design which are preferred by the designers and the detailed design of the current details. The original detailed design may cause the extension of the process of the architectural design that is planned to be done in a limited period of time. Because of this reason, since time factor is an important issue in order to perform and complete the design in the proposed time period and the proposed program framework, designers usually prefer the method of detail formation which uses the current details by using them as they are, or modifying them into his/her design criteria. In the architectural detailed design process, there are five main sources, which can be used by the designers as they are or involve the details to adapt, including books, magazines, standarts and regulations, company associations that produce or import material and system and company catalogs. In our daily life, the rapid development of the design equipments in the digital media, which are much more preferred by the desingners to design on the digital media, since the digital sources are easily accessible among other sources that the designers use; the details on the company website come to the fore within the digital sources, since they involve the free access and the current information on them. The architectural design process is closely related to the knowledge and the experience of the designer. Although the experience and knowledge of the designers in the detailed architectural design means stereotyped architectural detailed design, this situation enables to complete the detailed design in a much shorter time. This situation is reversed for the less experienced designers; having less experience and knowledge cause the extension of the detailed design period and being complicated for the designers. For this reason, the approach of formation with copying or modifying method form the detailed design method which is preferred especially for the less experienced designers. The main purpose in the study; including to prevent the extension of the detailed design period and to decrease the complexity of the design method for the less experienced designers, is to experimentally demonstrate the usefulness of the architectural details by the less experienced designers in the period of architectural detail formation which are published on the designed and developed website by the companies that produce or import material and system. In the first part of the study, since it is the most exposed part to environmental factors, structural element of the roof is discussed. The determination of the details of the companies that produce component and system about the roof is done through the website of the companies and it is decided how kind of details are there on the company website. The database, 'The Centre of Building Industry', on the digital media is used in order to access websites of the companies that produce component and system about the roof and it is reached to 421 details about 31 firms. In the second part of the study, an architectural control tool is created in the use of the determination of both content and expression technique of the architectural details formed as a result of design studies. It is benefited from the books, standarts, regulations and company details at the stage of the formation of the control tool. In the third part of the study, design studies are performed on the determination of the usefulness of the details by the less experienced designers in the detailed design period on the company website. Since the study is belong to the less experienced designers, designers are selected from the graduate students and architectures of having less professional experiences. It is especially noted that to reach an objective result of the designers at the same education level by equivalently comparing the final products and the design period during the design study. Design study includes the details benefitted from the holistic design, detail formation by personal approach and the formation of details by using the details on the company website. The data obtained at the end of the period is tried to compare by considering positive and negative aspects of the methods of "creating details by personal approach" and "creating details by using the details on the company website" and the usefulness of the details on the company website is investigated. During these investigations, the drawings at the end of design studies, design diaries kept by the designers and the camera records are used. The company details that are formed by the designers while forming the details are analyzed about the used sources and the level and amount of information, periods in the design periods are evaluated and the results that are obtained from the questionaries are introduced at the end of the design studies. As a result of the studies done by the less experienced designers on the usefulness of the details on the company website; - It is noticed that during the investigation of company website, the designers use general search engines and also the subtitle of "technical document" in order to reach the architectural details on company website. ­ Although the method of creating details done by the designers on the investigation of company website is a much longer period of time than the method of creating details by personal approach, it is observed that much more qualified details can be performed both with performance and also the expression technique with the method of creating details on the investigation of company website. ­ At the end of design study, the questionaries done with the designers; the approach of creating details by using the details on the company website is found to be more optimistic for them in terms of personal approach of provided easiness and the method of detail frmation in gathering data, the number of selections in the design period, the approach of developing selections, the speed of design, reaching the ultimate result, the reliability of the obtained detail, the applicability of the detail and selection of the material. ­ The approach of creating details by using the details on the company website that enables creativity, is found unfavorable in terms of providing the relationship between meronymy and the contribution to the entire design than the method of creating details by personal approach. ­ Designers point out that they usually prefer to use the method of creating details by investigating the company website since they creat much more complicated architectural details both with performance and also the expression technique. For further studies; - It is needed to increase the design studies and to study with different designer groups in order to define the usefulness of the details on the company website. - The integration of the printed company catalogs with the company website and also the digital media provided from the companies will enable to improve the development of this study.