Methods for Computable Building Codes

Nawari O Nawari,Adel Alsaffar

doi:10.13189/cea.2015.030601

Abstract

Building codes and regulatory standards are becoming increasingly complex with the acquisition of new knowledge in the design and construction domain. The necessity for computable representation of the building codes and regulations for automating the code checking process is becoming ever more critical. Within the framework of Building Information Modeling (BIM) work process, model checking against building regulations is generally needed to be an automatic or semi-automatic process. These checking mechanisms generally do not modify a building design, but rather evaluates a design on the basis of the configuration of objects, their relations and attributes. This paper presents a summary of the core existing methods for computerizing building codes and standards. It reviews main concepts for these methods including knowledge representation, reasoning procedures, and knowledge acquisition. Moreover, this study evaluates the capabilities of the reviewed methods in reference to their practical applications and applied limitations for modeling computable building codes and standards. Additionally, the paper proposes methods with practical flexibility of encoding building codes knowledge domain and at the same time possess transparent and verifiable syntax and sematic features. The suggested approaches rely on evidently identifying objective and subjective data of the regulatory text before formalizing building codes. The methodology realizes the limitations of the formalization systems by clearly identifying which components of the building codes and standards can be transformed into computable model and which parts can't be encoded and requires manual compliance checking.

Highlights

In the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry, specifications and regulations developed by experts and read and implemented by professionals
Since the cognitive and analytic ability of the human brain is dissimilar to anything implemented in computer systems, the automation of this process poses a real challenge to the AEC industry [1]
Even though precise definitions and specifications are essential for solving encoding building regulations, many code provisions aren't well defined and highly subjective

Summary

Introduction

In the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry, specifications and regulations developed by experts and read and implemented by professionals. The dictionary is being developed as part of the International Framework for Dictionaries effort and, in the US, is being managed by the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) in cooperation with ICC This approach is allowing the parameters within the building regulations to be identified against appropriate tables within the Omniclass classification system that has been developed by CSI and being recently accepted by the US National BIM Standard. (b)- Code Conformance Evaluation: This part addresses development and implementation of standards rule checking and reporting systems It includes building model preparation, where the essential information required verification is prepared; code provisions interpretation and logical structuring of rules for their application; and the checking result representation through reporting and visualization systems. This denotes that most of the provisions of a design standard refer to knowledge that all professionals are expected to be aware of. Knowledge and heuristics are needed to differentiate when to examine another, referenced standard and when to proceed based on assumed compliance [6]

Literature Review

Building Codes Formats

Suggested Approaches