Explain the evaluation mechanism in the architectural plans of government agencies with AHP technique

Evaluating and judging architectural designs has always been challenging. This challenge exists at all stages and levels of architecture, both in academic and professional communities. Due to the lack of criteria, guidelines or standard and codified regulations for judging and evaluating projects, objections to the results of judging and ultimately confusion of designers and participants is evident. Due to the essential differences between the field of architecture and other disciplines, there is no scientific and codified mechanism for judging and evaluating architectural designs. Judging of projects is generally based on personal tastes, tacit knowledge and previous experience of judges and the expectations and orders of the employer of the project. The present study uses Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to evaluate and judge the architectural designs submitted to government agencies. This method, by transforming complex problems into a hierarchy of its constituent factors, achieves the appropriate solution that is most relevant to the objectives. Accordingly, in the first stage, through library studies and preparation of a questionnaire, the criteria presented in the architectural plans in government institutions by experts and experts of the technical office were extracted. Then, through the method of hierarchical analysis, the two criteria are compared and finally the relative weight of each criterion is calculated. And then the final score of each criterion is determined for evaluation and judging. The results show that AHP (hierarchical analysis) technique, due to its simplicity, flexibility and simultaneous application of quantitative and qualitative criteria, can be used in evaluating and judging architectural designs.