Building-Use Knowledge Representation for Architectural Design: An ontology-based implementation

During building design processes, designers have to predict and evaluate future building performances oriented to its intended use and users. Current BIM and IFC technologies support designers allowing data exchange and information interoperability but, since their lack in semantics, they donít provide any knowledge implementation about how the designed building will be actually used and how people will interact with it. The research described in this paper aims to overcome this shortcoming by developing a new modelling approach, oriented to representation and management of knowledge related to future building use and users. The proposed representation model is based on an already accepted ontology-based structure and will make this large amount of knowledge accessible and usable by designers during architectural design processes, in order to enhance the final quality of the design product