New Object-Oriented PROGRES for Specifying the Conceptual Design Tool GraCAD

Abstract

This paper deals with the application of graph transformations for the specification of conceptual design tools. We show how the graph rewriting system PROGRES is used for specifying the graph part of the conceptual method for architects in which functional requirements of the building to be designed are elicited by means of graph structures. The consistency of the specified requirements and whether a design matches those requirements is verified with graph constraint checkers. We consider how the new object-oriented extensions of the PROGRES language, i.e. packages and node objects with redefinable methods can be used to achieve the required constraint monitoring and preserving functions in the form of graph checker objects. The prototype for our method, called GraCAD, is created with UPGRADE -the recently developed Java framework for developing visual applications based on a PROGRES specification, and the commercial system for architects ArchiCAD.

Design with architectural objects in industrialised house-building

“…Ekholm has designed a prototype information system for activity modelling as an add-on to ArchiCad (Ekholm 2001). Szuba (2005) presents another system as an add-on to ArchiCad, to be used for defining building spaces from activity spaces and functional requirements on the building. The question whether phenomenal values could be linked to objects composed of activities and built environment creating architectural objects is however yet unexplored.…”

Operations on network-based space layouts for modeling multiple space views of buildings

“…These operations add or remove levels of detail in a spatial hierarchy. Szuba [21] combines the hypergraph representation with a graph rewriting system to reason about spatial requirements. Activity requirements that are modeled as paths are matched against access graphs that are extracted from a space layout created in a BIM authoring system.…”