ABSTRACT
Constructive design is an intrinsic part of architectural education augmenting spatial design for obtaining satisfactory overall performance of a building project. Conventional formal education methods for construction the introduction of customary functional building elements, e.g. floors. The proposed ontology for building elements observes the rules of inheritance and encapsulation as the precepts of object-oriented modeling. The model enables students to configure coherent functional building elements enclosing architectural spaces by specifying the attributes of the former in a relational database. Hence parametric representation of elements is achieved for students to describe the elements of their building design. Element alternatives can be configured for the purpose of comparative analysis of their performance. Further benefits that may be derived from the implementation of the parametric representation include generation of configurations for plausible alternatives and their appraisal in terms of performance criteria as well as efficient exchange and repository of information for the purposes of performance specification and product development.
