Mission

To develop their designs, architects research and study plans of buildings that have already been constructed or designed. Currently, this information—which serves as a distributed collective memory—is primarily available in monographs, journals, and on the Internet. However, access to this information is limited because no standardized terminology is used, and unstructured and subjective metadata thus hinder effective research.

The organization and retrieval of knowledge are essential for the development of a society in scientific, economic, and social terms. Knowledge is understood as usable information. The distinction between knowledge, information, and data is not clear-cut in the literature; however, it can be determined by the extent to which information must be processed into data structures in order to be usable as knowledge.

The goal is to provide IT support for the early phases of the design process in order to efficiently research similar architectural situations as inspiration, concrete solutions, or to identify the actual problem. The iterative nature of the design process requires a continuous alternation between creative, analytical, and evaluative steps in order to select the most appropriate design approach from among the most promising variants.

To formalize architectural situations and determine similarity using computer-aided methods, the semantic fingerprinting of buildings—similar to the identification of individuals—is proposed. To map the spatial structure of architectural situations, graph-based approaches are being investigated, and various semantic fingerprints—for example, for room and component connections, alignment, orientation, or urban integration—are being formalized in graphs.