Open Access

Carolin Stapenhorst, Magdalena Zabek, Linda Hildebrand

• Against the background of growing data in everyday life, data processing tools become more powerful to deal with the increasing complexity in building design. The architectural planning process is offered a variety of new instruments to design, plan and communicate planning decisions. Ideally the access to information serves to secure and document the quality of the building and in the worst case, the increased data absorbs time by collection and processing without any benefit for the building and its user. Process models can illustrate the impact of information on the design- and planning process so that architect and planner can steer the process. This paper provides historic and contemporary models to visualize the architectural planning process and introduces means to describe today’s situation consisting of stakeholders, events and instruments. It explains conceptions during Renaissance in contrast to models used in the second half of the 20th century. Contemporary models are discussed regarding their value against the background of increasing computation in the building process.