Towards a Context Knowledge Taxonomy. Combined Methodologies to Improve a Fast-Search Concept Extraction for an Ontology Population

Context in Architectural Design can be defined-related-comparable to hypothesis and boundary conditions in mathematics. An eco-system that influences it by means of natural and artificial events, space and time dimension. The research has the aim to analyze the critical issues related to Context by providing a contribution to the study of interactions between Context Knowledge and Architectural Design and how it can be used to improve the performance of the buildings and reducing design mistakes. The research focusing on formal ontologies, has developed a model that enables a semantic approach to design application programs, to manage information, to answer design questions and to have a clear relation between the formal representation of the context domain and its meanings. This context model provides an advancement on the state of the art in simplified design assumptions, in term of ontology ambiguity and complexity reduction, by using algorithms to extract and optimize branches of the graph. The extraction does not limit the number of relations, that can be extended and improve context taxonomy coherency and accuracy

Knowledge-based System to Support Architectural Design. Intelligent objects, project net-constraints, collaborative work

The architectural design business is marked by a progressive increase in operators all cooperating towards the realization of building structures and complex infrastructures (Jenckes, 1997). This type of design implies the simulta-neous activity of specialists in different fields, often working a considerable dis-tance apart, on increasingly distributed design studies. Collaborative Architectural Design comprises a vast field of studies that em-braces also these sectors and problems. To mention but a few: communication among operators in the building and design sector; design process system logic architecture; conceptual structure of the building organism; building component representation; conflict identification and management; sharing of knowledge; and also, user interface; global evaluation of solutions adopted; IT definition of objects; inter-object communication (in the IT sense). The point of view of the research is that of the designers of the architectural arte-fact (Simon, 1996); its focus consists of the relations among the various design operators and among the latter and the information exchanged: the Building Objects. Its primary research goal is thus the conceptual structure of the building organ-ism for the purpose of managing conflicts and developing possible methods of resolving them

Noise Solver for Refurbishment Construction Site Design

The noise generated by the presence of a construction site within complex structure in operation (e.g. school, hospital) is a problem that too often is underestimated but that can generate problems of different nature, both concerning the health of the actors involved and regarding the performance of daily activities present within such structures (e.g. carrying out a lesson, a surgical procedure). The main aim of our tool is to highlight the impact of the noise generated by the construction site activities on these daily activities and to allow the simulation in real time of the viable solutions, thus arriving to find the one that is considered most suitable

Multimedia and Knowledge-based Computer-aided Architectural Design

It appears by now fairly accepted to many researchers in the field of the Computer Aided Architectural Design that the way to realize support tools for these aims is by means of the realization of Knowledge Based Assistants. This kind of computer programs, based on the knowledge engineering, finds their power and efficaciousness by their knowledge bases. Nowdays this kind of tools is leaving the research world and it appears evident that the common graphic interfaces and the modalities of dialogue between the architect and the computer, are inadequate to support the exchange of information that the use of these tools requires. The use of the knowledge bases furthermore, presupposes that the conceptual model of the building realized by others, must be made entirely understandable to the architect . The CAAD Laboratory has carried out a system software prototype based on Knowledge Engineering in the field of hospital buildings. In order to overcame the limit of software systems based on usual Knowledge Engineering, by improving architect-computer interaction, at CAAD Lab it is refining building model introducing into the knowledge base two complementary each other methodologies: the conceptual clustering and multimedia technics. This research will make it possible for architects navigate consciously through the domain of the knowledge base already implemented

HOW PLANTS REGULATE HEAT - Biomimetic Inspirations for building skins

Biomimicry is an approach that provides inspiration for answers to human problems by observing and analyzing nature’s designs and processes. This paper addresses the problem of thermoregulation of building skins and their effects on cooling loads. These loads are an essential contribution to building energy consumption in hot climates. This research has turned to biology and focused on botanical inspirations for designing building skins. Plants in particular have many similarities with buildings, most importantly, that they are rooted and fixed in their location, and therefore were chosen for this investigation. The aim of this paper is to define a set of biologically-inspired ideas and categorize them according to the main strategy used, the method of heat transfer, and the corresponding architectural feature of the building skin that could be studied. It acts as a small ‘concept database’ and a systematic categorization of ideas for architects interested in biomimetic design

Philosophy and Structure of a CWE-based Model of Building Design.

Building industry involves a far greater number of professional profiles than all other industries, and it wastes about half of world energy consumption: these two figures are already indicative of the economical importance of this sector beyond all the technical and environmental implications. Anyhow, while the complexity of the building process and of its products is ever increasing, the quality of the buildings is often inadequate, as not complying with the required performances, budget and timing . These difficulties, generally all the greater the more ‘creative’ the design, are often aggravated by misunderstandings, lack of data, and the different aims pursued by the various actors, owing to the close links that exist between actors, activities and resources. To overcome these difficulties we propose a CWE-based process/product model (and an underlying formalization of the information exchanged) of an ICT system through which numerous actors exchange knowledge and interact in carrying out consistent solutions of a design project

A Theoretical Model of Shared Distributed Knowledge Bases for Collaborative Architectural Design

This paper is a report on research in progress on Collaborative Architectural Design. The proposed model, the resulting system and its implementation are referenced mainly from the point of view of architectural design and related branches, as envisaged in more advanced design studies. The model is not lacking in validity when its rationale is applied to other fields. The research simultaneously pursues an integrated model: a) of the structure of the net-based architectural design process (consisting of operators, activities, phases and resources); b) of the required knowledge (distributed and functional to the operators and the phases of the process). The paper is focused on the second horn of the model: the structure of the distributed KBs of the Entire Building (EB). The article is divided into three parts. In the first classification is made of the support tools available to architectural design based on two paradigms: the Conventional Method and Collaborative Design. In part two a description is given of the overall model structure, the stratified structure of the Knowledge Bases (Common, Specialized, Project) and that of the EB. The latter is represented by means of the Space System and the Building System. Lastly, a description is given of the atomic elements of the Knowledge Bases - the objects-components; their characteristics in a collaborative, distributive context, in the presence of constraints and objectives that vary according to the operators and the context. In part three a possible implementation of the model is discussed

An ontology-based system to support agent-based simulation of building use

The prediction and evaluation of future building response to its intended use and users is a complex task that designers have to face during the design process. As matter of fact, few methods exist that can help designers in such task, despite its importance in the definition of the building quality; norms and regulations, personal designer's experience, post-occupancy evaluation have shown their limit to provide predictive models of the complex phenomenon of human behaviour in built environments. With the increasing of computing power, virtual simulation techniques have been introduced in building design to control, manage and predict complex systems of building performances such as its energy or structural behaviour, but not to representation of buildings while-in-use. The Agent-Based Modelling and Simulation (ABMS) paradigm has been applied in building design to simulation of specific aspects of human behaviour and in specific occurrences (for instance in fire egress simulations), while a more extensive representation of users actions, behaviours, and activities is still missing. In order to overcome this lack, in this paper we propose to support agent-based simulation with a knowledge base, developed by means of ontologies and able to provide a structured system of data about human-building interaction, useful as start hypotheses for Agent-based Simulation. For its development, we rely on the general template of building knowledge management already proposed by the research group (Carrara et al., 2009), extending it to representation of the whole system users-built environment. The proposed general template, configured by the meaning - properties - rules structure, allows the formalization of users/agents entities, whose parameter, attributes and behavioural rules can encode several 'aspects' of real users and their interactions with the other entities (building components, furniture, other people) in a built environment. Currently, a first application has been developed dealing with the virtually testing of a small hospital ward, in order to evaluate the reliability and the potentiality of such approach. COPYRIGHT: © 2012 The authors

Simulating the thermal and daylight performances of a folded porous double façade for an office building in Cairo

The application of Double Skin Facades (DSFs) in climates is limited and their potential benefits are still under investigation. Moreover, daylight and thermal performances of the double façade are rarely studied together. In this paper a set of parameters are optimized for the design of a folded porous double façade for an existing office building in Cairo, with an aim of reducing cooling loads while maintaining daylight needs. The design and optimization processes take place using parametric design software, specifically Grasshopper Plugin for Rhino 3D modeller. These software tools were chosen due to the possibility of using evolutionary algorithms for multi-objective optimization, and environmental simulation plugins that provide real-time feedback during the early design phase. The existing building acts as a reference case to which the proposed façade is compared to evaluate its performance in South-East and North-West orientations. It is also compared to a conventional double façade. The paper discusses the effect of the design parameters on the thermal and daylight performances of the façade highlighting their preferred numerical range. Limitations of the software used are addressed, requiring verification of results using CFD simulations in future work

Digitally fabricated housing. Tracking the evolution through two decades

The author is investigating the ability of digital fabrication tools to provide an alternative method for creating affordable flexible single family residential units as a part of an ongoing PhD research. This paper presents a review of previous attempts within the time frame of twenty years with a thorough analysis and breakdown of the prototypes. It provides a time line tracking with milestones of the usage of digital fabrication tools in housing construction. The analysis will include but not limited to: Design/construction time – overall cost – materials for primary/secondary structure – tools for virtual design/actual fabrication – special design methods/considerations (when applicable). The case studies are organized in a comprehensive chronological table. The paper suggests there are three main trends for digital fabrication in housin