Special Issue Articles

Multimodal spatial data access for architecture design assistance

Carl Schultz^a1 c1 and Mehul Bhatt^a1

^a1 Project [DesignSpace], University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

Abstract

We present a multimodal spatial data access framework designed to serve the informational and computational requirements of architectural design assistance systems that are intended to provide intelligent spatial decision support and analytical capabilities. The framework focuses on multiperspective semantics, qualitative and artifactual spatial abstractions, and industrial conformance and interoperability within the context of the industry foundation classes. The framework provides qualitative and cognitively adequate representational mechanisms, and the formal interpretation of the structural form of indoor spaces that are not directly provided by conventional computer-aided design based or quantitative models of space. We illustrate the manner in which these representations directly provide the spatial abstractions that are needed to enable the implementation of intelligent analytical capabilities in design assistance tools. We introduce the framework, and also provide detailed use cases that illustrate the usability of the framework and the manner of its utilization within architectural design assistance systems.

(Received March 17 2011)

(Accepted October 15 2011)

Keywords

• Decision Support for Design Architecture;
• Design Semantics;
• Intelligent Computer-Aided Architectural Design;
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning;
• Qualitative Spatial Representation and Reasoning;
• Spatial Computing for Design

Correspondence:

^c1 Reprint requests to: Carl Schultz, Project [DesignSpace], Spatial Cognition Research Center (SFB/TR 8), University of Bremen, Bibliothekstraße 1, Bremen 28359, Germany. E-mail: cschultz@informatik.uni-bremen.de