ABSTRACT
The building model must include knowledge and become a true building simulation with complete, accurate and integrated references to all aspects that may be relevant for the code checking. The theoretical and practical aspects of the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)-based modelling, as well as the kind of the desired code checking assistance, result in the necessity of dramatic support from cognition-based techniques in order to evaluate the presence of sense in each building description, specially when the certification of a building plan is the goal. The chapter discusses the issues following the formerly developed concept of a Normative Product Model. The evolution of the International Alliance for Interoperability design for the IFC standard seams to be more and more successful about the referred expectations, but it denotes some conceptual limits in relation to building simulation, which are more concerned to the quality of the modelling than with extension capabilities.
