Constraint-based renovation design support through the renovation domain model

A fundamental challenge within the field of renovation is handling enormous complexity at two levels. Firstly, complexity at the level of an individual building project must be handled that consists of thousands of building elements that are amenable to renovation, and how each renovation action impacts a range of competing key performance indicators (KPIs), which are unique for every project. Secondly, complexity must be handled at the AECO-community level of knowledge about what renovation actions are available today. The aims of this paper are first to present an innovative approach for addressing these challenges through developing a Renovation Domain Model for expressing and capturing key concepts for renovation scenarios; and second to propose an innovative renovation design support framework that provides design teams with broad coverage of the design space in conjunction with limited, careful use of precise simulations for KPI evaluation. The system is empirically evaluated on a large residential building case study in Denmark.