The Use of Artificial Neural Networks for Residential Buildings Conceptual Cost Estimation

Accurate cost estimation in the early phase of the building's design process is of key importance for a project's success. Both underestimation and overestimation may lead to projects failure in terms of costs. The paper presents synthetically some research results on the use of neural networks for conceptual cost estimation of residential buildings. In the course of the research the author focused on regression models binding together the basic information about residential buildings available in the early stage of design and construction cost. Application of different neural networks types was analysed (multilayer perceptron, multilayer perceptron with data compression based on principal component analysis and radial basis function networks). Due to the research results, multilayer perceptron networks proved to be the best neural network type for the problem solution. The research results indicate that a neural approach may be an interesting alternative for the traditional methods of conceptual cost estimation in construction projects.