SEEDS: a framework for socio-environmental decision support in early-stage building design

Abstract

Building sustainability certification systems often assess criteria in isolation, overlooking interactions and trade-offs between aspects. This paper introduces SEEDS (Socio-Environmental Early-stage Decision Support), a tool designed to help stakeholders in building design identify and evaluate the impact of socially oriented design intents. SEEDS has been developed through an iterative, incremental process that involves potential end users in testing individual components throughout the development process. The study extends SEEDS in three ways: (1) the catalogue now includes 178 combinations of social intents and design choices derived from real building projects; (2) a novel approach for indicating the realisation of social intents was tested in workshops with 117 participants; and (3) SEEDS data were visualised as an interactive graph network in a proof of concept software tool, with usability assessed through deliberation sessions. Results show that social intents introduced by architects are linked to material or object changes in 86.52% of cases, and 55.06% of cases lead to increased CO2 emissions. Workshop findings reveal significant variation in participants' ability to recognise social intent (0.00–95.60%), highlighting the context-dependent nature of social values. Feedback confirms that visualisation improves navigation through the catalogue and comprehension of the data, while suggesting refinements such as colour-coded impact indicators. Overall, SEEDS is a novel decision-support tool demonstrating potential as an evidence-based tool for supporting informed, socially responsive decision-making in early-stage building design.