Management system for a Virtual Cooperative Project

International audienceThe paper presents on-going research aimed at the support of the management ofbuilding projects and the aid cooperative design. Today, The use of systems adaptedto the cooperative design assistance for the building domain is complex. Thisresults from the complexity of the cooperative work (difficulties in tracking actor'swork, lack of most of the required information, coordination problems, implicitnature of most of the construction activities, etc.) The paper will briefly reviewtwo data exchanging modes that we had defined. After, on the basis of this conceptof cooperative design we describe a new model of a virtual environment aimedto takes into account the relational organization of the project and the semanticmeaning of works. This research represents a new approach because it not basedon management of documents but on all data relative to works. Finally, we use thisnew model for defining a design-aided tool, to deduce advantages and limits of the“Virtual Cooperative Project”. This system lets geographically dispersed projectactors model the project context of a building. More specifically, it allows interpreting,using and exchanging project works in a centralized virtual environmentduring the building life cycle. This system uses IFC objects which associate in thesame model the semantic and the 3D representation of building works