ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT Investigating different design options constitutes an iterative process in the design phase of a building. Related decisions can heavily influence the further project course and realization. The steadily increasing introduction of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in building design is replacing conventional methods currently dominating the life cycle management of buildings. In early design stages, the use of BIM offers promising advantages due to easily configurable models providing reusable information. To enable information exchange processes, the open data format Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) has been established. The scope of IFC, however, does not cover the management of design options. In this paper, an IFC-based management of design options is presented. By providing different options within one consistent model, the repeated creation of objects is avoided. Furthermore, the use of consistent identifiers is supported, preventing inconsistent data. To provide a transparent overview on the structure of the resulting model and the effect of single options, a graph-based representation is proposed.
