Making Rejected and Non-Selected Architectural Design Decisions Traceable: A Decision/Memory Model
2075-5309
Abstract
In BIM-enabled architectural projects, information systems preserve accepted decisions far more reliably than the rejected and non-selected alternatives that shaped them. Drawings, models, specifications and common data environments record what a project became, while the reasons that eliminated competing options are dispersed across meeting notes and revision logs or lost. This asymmetry weakens design coordination, change management and cross-project knowledge reuse. This article proposes a conceptually derived and analytically evaluated recording artefact for recovering these lost decision traces within the phase-transition band from spatial coordination to technical design. A two-gate evaluation logic separates codified screening from stakeholder-mediated review and decouples the procedural location of rejection from the category family that organises its reason. Three loss types are identified: pre-stakeholder invisible loss, trace/version loss and terminal loss. These are linked to six rejection-category families, four process redirection effects and differentiated memory destinations, with a constraint-bearing layer divided into avoidance and comparative branches. A fillable eight-field decision record template, formalised as a single recording-and-routing procedure, is specified for BIM, common data environment and design review workflows, supported by a query specification. The model is illustrated through a constructed hotel-floor decision node and offers a structured basis for retaining the knowledge carried by rejected, revised and valid but non-selected architectural decisions.