sem7 IT in the Building Process
The Virtual Building, sem7 2001

[home] [education] Last update 2001.12.18 (2001.11.01) [2001.08.29]


IT i Civilingeniørspeciale i Byggeledelse/IT in Building Management.

Virtual Buildings.


Goal: The goal of the 'IT in the Building Process - The Virtual Building' course is to mediate knowledge about fundamental concepts, technologies and methods to analyse and develop models which describes a building, the building process and the digital society from design to application.
Volume/
Placement:
This 2 modules course is one of 4 with emphasis on IT during the semester 7Master of IT in Building Management education (calender).
Content: Knowledge representations in practice. Exisiting classification systems and meta classification methodologies.
Acquisition and storage of experiences data. Design and development of services for knowledge transfer. Integration of external product and regulation databases.
Introduction to conceptual modelling methods and languages.
Future structures of virtual building models.
Computer supported trading.
Learning organisations and cooperating enterprises.
Computer supported maintenance and facility management.
Citizen nets and the digital city.
References. Further reading under each lecture.
Examination: Oral test based on 1-3 hour discussions a group on a mini project or exercises collection. Assessed with the grade "passed" or "failed" with internal censor participation.
Examination will take place at Sohngaardsholmsvej 57, Room A:217, 14 January, 2002, at 09:00 (Group 3.120) . Censors are Per Christiansson, Kjeld Svidt and xx.
Miniprojects should be delivered latest Monday January 07, 2002 to Per Christiansson (on Project Web).

The miniproject reports and corresponding web-database solutions will be presented here

  • Group3120 (Lars Kåre Olsen, Kim Staunstrup Thomsen, Rasmus Vium Fristed, Randi Muff Ebbesen, Mads Carlsen, Malene Møller) report, web_db solution (login as mm/mm)
Participants: The students come from semester 6 of the civil engineering program. You can also get access to previous student projects works via the 1999 and 2000 sem7 Virtual Building courses (education). During the course exercises and a miniproject are carried through.

The teachers are:
Prof. Per Christiansson [PC]
Ass. Prof. Kjeld Svidt [KS]








1. SETTING THE SCENE

Friday September 14, 2001.
Lecture/discussions 08.15 - 12.00.
Sohngaardsholmsvej 57, Room A:217, Aalborg University. [PC].
http://it.civil.auc.dk/it/medialab/index.html

This lecture explains and comments the introduction of IT in the building process during the latest decades.

Digital models, standards and systems have been developed to support for example engineering calculations, stability analyses, simulations, graphic presentations, time planing, resource management, and documentaion.

The semester 7, 1999, project site is shown on interactive photos below.

Click on the image
for a high resolution [1.3 Mb]
interactive office

Click on the image
for a low [0.5 Mb] resolution
interactive harbour image


Click on the image for a high [4.9 Mb] resolution interactive harbour image or here for low [1.7 Mb] resolution.






2. APPLICATION INFORMATION MODELS

Tuesday September 18, 2001.
Lecture 12.30 - 14.30. Exercises 14.30 -16.30.
Sohngaardsholmsvej 57, Room A:217, Aalborg University. [KS]
http://it.civil.auc.dk/it/medialab/index.html

Building products and processes must be described in formalised data models before than can be implemented in computer systems.

An overview is given over efforts and results in the area of (de facto) standards development for formalised descriptions which can be used in building product models, building process models, EDI - Electronic Data Exchange, vendor building components models, and knowledge managements models.






3. KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATIONS

Tuesday September 25, 2001.
Lecture 12.30 - 14.30. Exercises 14.30 -16.30.
OBS must be moved
Sohngaardsholmsvej 57, Room A:217, Aalborg University. [PC].
http://it.civil.auc.dk/it/medialab/index.html

Computers can be used to store information which will mimic or support our own knowledge stored in hour brains. There is a spectrum of different computer software which can be used to represent different knowledge handling routines and knowledge domains. For example in connetion with decision support, information retrieval and storage, experience capture, collaboration, and design syntheses.

We will lok at the following computer stored knowledge reoresentations - hypertext, relational databases, production systems, predicate logig based systems, artificial neural networks, induction systems, and analogue representations (Object representations are covered in another course and will only be touched upon here). We will also in this connection comment on knowledge acquisition methods.

4. CONT!

Tuesday October 2 2001.
Lecture 12.30 - 14.30. Exercises 14.30 -16.30.
Sohngaardsholmsvej 57, Room A:217, Aalborg University. [KS].
http://it.civil.auc.dk/it/medialab/index.html

As the subject area is huge we continue to investigate knowledge representations and how they can be used to represent different parts and actors in the building process





5. CONCEPTUAL MODELLING

Tuesday October 9, 2001.
Lecture 12.30 - 14.30. Exercises 14.30 -16.30.
Sohngaardsholmsvej 57, Room A:217, Aalborg University. [PC].
http://it.civil.auc.dk/it/medialab/index.html

Up until now we have mostly discussed how different pieces of the building process may be represented for later implementation in computers. Before we arrive to the actual implementation of our data models in computer systems we must make so called conceptual models.

A conceptual model is a high level description of parts and the whole process we are considering for computer application. It will help us to understand and describe the world we are dealing with (even if we do not intend to make a computer implementation). There are different conceptual modelling methods which are suited for different or similar application areas.

We will look at conceptual modelling of the building product and it's time dependent properties (process models) during specification, design, contruction, use, and demoltion/recycling of the building product. User cognitive models and human computer interface models will be treated in greater detail in the semeter 8 IT course 'IT IN THE BUILDING PROCESS I - IT TOOLS'.






6. VIRTUAL BUILDING MODELS AND SYSTEMS

Friday October 12, 2001.
Lecture 08.15 - 10.00. Exercises 10.00 -12.00.
Sohngaardsholmsvej 57, Room A:217, Aalborg University. [KS].
http://it.civil.auc.dk/it/medialab/index.html

An overview of attempts to make digital building models is given and commented on. The first models were made during the 1960'ies in key system fashion. We will look at the properties of the latest three decade building models and what we can expect in the future.

7. CONT!

Friday October 19, 2001.
Lecture 08.15 - 10.00. Exercises 10.00 -12.00.
Sohngaardsholmsvej 57, Room A:217, Aalborg University. [PC].
http://it.civil.auc.dk/it/medialab/index.html

We will continue to comment on the devlopment of systems and models for handling process related issues - project management systems, systems for electronic trading, analyses- and simulation systems, and systems for knowledge management.







8. THE DIGITAL CITY AND SOCIETY

Friday October 26, 2001.
Lecture 08.15 - 10.00. Exercises 10.00 -12.00.
Sohngaardsholmsvej 57, Room A:217, Aalborg University. [KS].
http://it.civil.auc.dk/it/medialab/index.html

Information technology,IT, will cause a paradigm shift in our society from the art of writing, printing to the art of communication. In the same way as the car highly influenced the physical design of our society IT will higly influence the forming of the global villages.

New services will be designed and implemented in the citizen nets to support the village inhabitants - access to commune service and commune facts bases, and possibilities for active participation in the democratic decision process.

We will study and analyse ongoing efforts in the area.







9. THE INTELLIGENT BUILDING

Friday November 2, 2001.
Lecture 08.15 - 10.00. Exercises 10.00 -12.00.
Sohngaardsholmsvej 57, Room A:217, Aalborg University. [PC].
http://it.civil.auc.dk/it/medialab/index.html

The building product itself will contain or have attached to it IT-tools which will support it during it's life time. Information handling and communication support will be given for the building inhabitants, for the adminstration of the building and it's operation and maintenence (O&M). The IT support will be in the form of conventional computer systems and sophisticated input/output units as well as in the building and installations embedded computer systems.

We will investigate exisiting and expected infrastructures, systems, and services in the intelligent buildings.





10. SPECIAL ISSUES. SUMMING UP

Friday November 9, 2001.
Lecture 08.15 - 10.00. Exercises 10.00 -12.00.
Sohngaardsholmsvej 57, Room A:217, Aalborg University. [PC], [KS].
http://it.civil.auc.dk/it/medialab/index.html
Miniproject presentations and discussions.
Additional subjects, discussions, and evaluation.


Per Christiansson