ABSTRACT
The integration of the Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry and the interoperability of the hundreds of software applications supporting the design and construction of the built environment have been providing one of the most challenging environments for the application of information and communication technologies. There are numerous related research projects in the EU, the US and beyond: The Grid Enabled Optimization and Design Search for Engineering project was one of the first to explore the possibilities of the semantic grid, however, the semantics was being attached to files as metadata. Grid is a type of parallel and distributed system that enables the sharing, selection, and aggregation of geographically distributed “autonomous” resources dynamically at runtime depending on their availability, capability, performance, cost, and users’ quality of-service requirements. Grids could ensure the interoperability and collaboration platform providing that they include the key ingredient required for a complex engineering virtual organization-the support for the shared semantics.
