ABSTRACT

The advent of ubiquitous information catalyzed by the development of the World Wide Web (WWW) and by extension the Semantic Web (Hendler & BernersLee 2010) has transformed the way humans work, socialize, and interpret the world. As a consequence, humans are becoming increasingly dependent on data in nearly every aspect of life. Practically speaking, this immense influx of data and information, coupled with the rapid rate of change in all disciplines, means that it is getting more and more difficult to synthesize and apply the state-of-the-art knowledge in one’s own field, in closely allied fields, and even in one’s own sub-disciplines. Indeed, Design Knowledge and Practice are more distributed now than ever, due in large part to vast amounts of heterogeneous data related to the design, construction, and ecological impact of the built environment that span the currently incompatible levels of open access, proprietary, and other types of special interest databases.