Architectural design can be considered an information-adding process, and within this process, each design decision provides information that uncovers some uncertainty regarding what is to be constructed. In early design stages, cost estimation is indispensable for subsequent decision making, but it cannot be accurate owing to the uncertainty associated with decisions that have not been made. This study proposes a Monte Carlo simulation–based method for designers to estimate potential trends in the construction cost of future design developments. The simulation reveals the probability distribution of construction cost via massive sampling over acceptable ranges of cost-affecting factors that have not yet been uncovered in the current design stage. The simulation result can serve as a part of a dashboard that provides guidance to designers for more optimally controlling construction cost.

可以将建筑设计视为添加信息的过程，并且在此过程中，每个设计决策所提供的信息都会揭示有关要构造的内容的一些不确定性。在设计的早期阶段，成本估算对于后续决策是必不可少的，但由于与尚未做出的决策相关的不确定性，因此成本估算是不准确的。这项研究提出了一种基于蒙特卡洛模拟的方法，供设计人员估算未来设计开发的建筑成本中的潜在趋势。该模拟通过在目前设计阶段尚未发现的可接受的成本影响因素范围内进行大规模采样，揭示了建筑成本的概率分布。