Collective Intelligence in Design Crowdsourcing

This study investigates how collective intelligence emerges in crowdsourcing for architectural design. Previous studies have revealed that collective intelligence emerges from collaboration and can outperform individual intelligence. As design is a highly collaborative practice, collective intelligence plays a vital role in the design process. In this study, we compare the structure of two architectural design crowdsourcing systems using several methods. The results of the analysis suggest that design crowdsourcing systems can give rise to the following three types of collective intelligence: (1) discussive, which emerges from an conversation between designers and clients; (2) synthetic, which emerges from a parallel and sequential design development; and (3) evaluative, which is based on the wisdom of the crowd in evaluating and selecting designs. The article concludes with recommendations for collaborative design method.