Augmented Reality to Support Multi-Criteria Decision Making in Building Retrofitting

In the decision-making process, many complex problems may be difficult to deal with traditional approaches. In particular, in the construction sector, the large volume of information and the involvement of non-expert users can make time consuming and inconsistent the choice. In this paper, a new method supported by the Augmented Reality (AR) is proposed to simplify and improve the decision-making process. Such novel approach starts from the theoretical basis of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Simos-Roy-Figueira method (SRF) and develops a virtual environment to support the decision-making. In particular the AR provide a large amount of visual information transforming a complex decision method in a user-friendly tool. The proposed approach is applied in the field of building energy retrofitting in order to demonstrate its effectiveness. In particular, the goal of the analysis is the selection of the best panel, chosen from a set of experimental Precast Construction Panels, to improve the envelope performances of existing buildings. The decision involved both quantitative data (such as costs and thermal behavior) and qualitative data (such as the aesthetic impact).