Awareness: the best tool for decision-making in the Collaborative Design process. Context ontologies and intelligent systems for early stage decisions in architectural design

From the earliest stages of Architectural Design, designers have to take many decisions, mostly based on the relationships between the project (i.e. the ‘Product’ of building design) and its ‘Context’. Currently this process lacks an application program able to support and verify these relationships and overall building performance. The work of our research group aims at formalizing Knowledge about the ‘Product’ and ‘Context’ using ontologies in order to enhance existing BIM instruments. Identifying and structuring ‘Context’ entity knowledge and studying a system that relates them to building components and spaces is a fundamental element for quality design solutions as these relationships are often overlooked in the early stages of design. Entities of this knowledge domain have been defined and formalized by means of Protégé O.L. The development of such a system for managing ‘Product’ related to ‘Context’ can enhance relationships among product, context and designers as the latter can be advised from the outset of what might affect their design solutions, so they are more aware of the consequences of their decisions