Knowledge based collaboration for cross-disciplinary architectural design.

The architectural design consists of a purpose-oriented collective process that is defined in time, split up into phases, implemented directly or indirectly by numerous professional profiles. The very fast technological development, the plethora of technical and procedural rules, the increased size of buildings, the continuous cultural changes in the use of the constructions and the scrutiny imposed on energy and environmental problems, all contribute to making the design/building process increasingly complex. It is therefore becoming more and more difficult, using conventional design methods, to obtain high level and creative design solutions while keeping within the planned budget and time constraints. The interactions among the professionals show how the essential basis of all forms of collaboration thoroughly lies in the knowledge representation and its management throughout the design process. The principal innovation hereby introduced consists in knowledge modeling and managing. This evidently differs from what currently takes place in existing CAD systems in which the attribution of concepts to data is implicit and is missing an explicit knowledge. All that leads to an arbitrary and subjective interpretation of the meanings of entities by various actors, thereby ruling out any form of an effective design collaboration. The described model has been applied to develop a Knowledge based Collaborative Working Environment and tested by means of a simplified design of a hospital ward. A demonstrative prototype system has been developed to support a highly interactive collaborative design process among three specialist actors in the field of Architecture, Structural and Mechanical Engineering.