Abstract/Summary

This paper explores how visual images used in construction project design work can be understood as social semiotic compositions that are authored by design teams to be interpreted by client audiences in particular ways. The paper clarifies how visual images are strategic communicative resources employed by designers that effect the comprehension of requirements, the relations between project parties and the design process itself. A visual image of hospital patient rooms from a hospital construction project briefing meeting is examined from a multimodal social semiotic perspective; the analysis being supported and supplemented with insights from designers immersed in construction project communications with client parties. The discussion notes how different representations of requirements using visual and textual signs can impact the design discourse and relations between parties; visual images being more sophisticated than simple tools in the design process. The insights of the paper are informative for multiple civil engineering and architectural contexts where visual images assist and propel forward the design process.