Object oriented representation of design decisions

Abstract

During the course of a design project numerous design decisions are made, usually with little attention paid to documenting them or keeping track of them. Systematic documentation and representation of design decisions can not only be invaluable in learning from past design experiences, but can also be good tools in teaching architectural design. By using abstraction and analogy to analyze a design precedent, a problem/sub-problem hierarchy can be built where similarities and differences between the precedent problem and the target problem, goals, constraints and solutions are identified for each level of the hierarchy. Each one of these can be represented as objects in an object oriented programming environment, allowing the construction of a hierarchic structure. This model was incorporated into a computer assisted learning system called `DesignRep' which was created by using Toolbook® (Asymetrix) object oriented development environment.