Integrated design

Integrated design is a comprehensive holistic approach to design which brings together specialisms usually considered separately. It attempts to take into consideration all the factors and modulations necessary to a decision-making process. A few examples are the following:

• Design of a building which considers whole building design including architecture, structural engineering, passive solar building design and HVAC. The approach may also integrate building lifecycle management and a greater consideration of the end users of the building. The aim of integrated building design is often to produce sustainable architecture.
• Design of both a product (or family of products) and the assembly system that will produce it.
• Design of an electronic product that considers both hardware and software aspects, although this is often called co-design (not to be confused with participatory design, which is also often called co-design).

The requirement for integrated design comes when the different specialisms are dependent on each other or "coupled". An alternative or complementary approach to integrated design is to consciously reduce the dependencies. In computing and systems design, this approach is known as loose coupling.