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Automated design methods facilitate the study of the influence of design forms on the buildings' behavior, and help compare the performance of alternative designs more effectively. This paper presents a Unified Matrix Method, as an effective automated method that aids in the search for the best compromised spatial design of multi-story modular buildings during the early stages of the design process. The method is presented in a general format employing a balanced approach that integrates different design aspects together, namely constructional, architectural and structural aspects. First, it describes how the spatial design of multi-story modular buildings can be generally represented by three-dimensional matrices arisen from combinatorial problems. Then, the spatial design is modeled by a design structure matrix, which decomposes the building into smaller components such as modular units, connections …