Design quality indicator

The Design Quality Indicator (DQI) is a toolkit to measure, evaluate and improve the design quality of buildings.

Development of DQI was started by the Construction Industry Council in 1999 and the toolkit was launched as an online resource for the UK construction industry on 1 October 2003. In 2004 the DQI received recognition from the British Institute of Facilities Management for the role of involving users in the design process. The DQI tool was made available to users in the United States in 2006, and an online American version was launched on 20 October 2008.

DQI applies a structured approach to assess design quality based on the model by the architect Vitruvius, the Roman author of the earliest surviving theoretical treatise on building in Western culture, who described design in terms of utilitas, firmitas and venustas, often translated as commodity, firmness and delight. DQI uses a modern-day interpretation of these terms as:

DQI is completed by a range of stakeholders in the briefing and design stages of a building project, or on a completed building. Stakeholders who participate include:

DQI is applied in a facilitated workshop that is led by a certified DQI facilitator.

There are three models of design quality indicator:

Formed in 2006, DQI USA is the only company that is authorized to distribute the DQI tool in North America. New York City's Department of Design and Construction has adopted the DQI tool as a mandatory step in the procurement of city-owned buildings such as police stations, libraries, firehouses, museums and clinics. The DQI has also been used to investigate the relation between building design, user satisfaction, and property financial and marketing performance in North America hotels.

DQI is a web-based assessment tool that helps define and evaluate design quality at all key stages in the building procurement process. Through a proprietary algorithm, the tool converts individual subjective perceptions into objective measurable results. Clients, designers and building stakeholders rate aspects of a project on a simple six-point scale by completing a short questionnaire. The quantification of these "design intangibles" is a unique feature to DQI. The spider diagram is the signature output of DQI. The “chunks” missing from the pie represent deficiencies in the building.

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