To fulfil the integration task, it was required to merge 4 individually developed systems into a single domain. This was a cognitive exercise which required the group to define a concept which could logically connect our disparate domains of highrise building, building structure design, building energy performance system and scaffolding.
We conceptualised a ‘tool facilitating design and construction processes in building renovation’ as a suitable connection between the individual domains and objective for a new integrated context.
The repurposed roles within the new domain context were:
- Structural and architectural parts allowed for adapting the tool to a wide variety of existing building contexts, enabling structural grid generation and automatic structural component sizing based on loading conditions.
- The BES part enabled thermal analysis to assist in decision making the renovation design process.
- Finally, the scaffolding part allowed for planning the implementation of renovation works from a logistical perspective.
The group then carried out the integration of the previously developed OWL ontologies to provide a cross-disciplinary semantic taxonomy (link to ontology webpage). This was followed by integration of separate Dynamo scripts (link to model webpage) to interact dynamically as a single system. Flexibility of the 3D model is demonstrated by applying the tool in 3 different buildings contexts.