Design process visualizing and review system with architectural concept design ontology

DesignScape, a prototype design process visualization and review system, is being developed. Its purpose is to visualize the design process in more intuitive manner so that one can get an insight to the complicated aspects of the design process. By providing a tangible utility to the design process performed by the expert designers or guided by the system, novice designers will be greatly helped to learn how to approach a certain class of design. Not only as an analysis tool to represent the characteristics of the design process, the system will be useful also for learning design process. A design ontology is being developed as a critical part of the system, to represent designer's activities associated with various design information during the conceptual design process, and then to be utilized for a computer environment for design analysis and guidance. To develop the design ontology, a conceptual framework of design activity model is proposed, and then the model has been tested and elaborated through investigating the early phase of architectural design. A design process representation model is conceptualized based on the ontology, and reflected into the development of the system.