Advanced Building Simulation

190 Augenbroe
One-to-one interfacing Interfacing through shared model
Figure 8.1 From non-scalable to scalable interoperability solutions.
product model” a huge undertaking. PDT has been efficiently deployed in highly
organized engineering disciplines where it has underpinned systems for concurrent
engineering, project data management, data sharing, integration, and product knowledge
management. In the building industry, full-blown systems have not reached
the market yet. Major obstacles are the scale and diversity of the industry and the
“service nature” of the partnerships within it. The latter qualification is based on
the observation that many relationships in a building project put less emphasis on
predictable and mechanistic data collaboration than on the collaborative (and often
unpredictable) synergy of human relationships.
The average building project requires the management of complex data exchange
scenarios with a wide variety of software applications. Building assessment scenarios
typically contain simulation tasks that cannot be easily automated. They require
skilled modeling and engineering judgment by their performers. In such cases only a
certain level of interoperability can be exploited, usually stopping short of automation.
This is the rule rather than the exception during the design phases where designers
call on domain experts to perform design assessments. Such settings are complex
task environments where the outcome is highly reliant on self-organization of the
humans in the system. The latter part of this chapter addresses the issues of integration
of simulation tools in design analysis settings where these issues play a dominant
role. It will be argued that interoperability according to Figure 8.1 is a requirement
but by no means the solution in highly interactive, partly unstructured, and unpredictable
design analysis settings. In those situations, the support of the underlying
human aspects of the designer to consultant interactions, as well as the special nature
of their relationship should be reflected in support systems. Different levels of integration
among the team members of a building design team will have to be accomplished.
First of all, there is the problem of the heterogeneity of information that is
exchanged between one actor and another. Harmonizing the diversity of information
in one common and consistent repository of data about the designed artifact is the
first (traditional) level of ambition. The next level of integration is accomplished in
the total management, coordination, and supervision over all communication that
occurs within a project team.