Jean-Claude Bignon

Asynchronous coordination of virtual teams in creative applications (co-design or co-engineering): requirements and design criteria

This paper reports on asynchronous coordination of a virtual team in a virtual enterprise. It confronts two approaches: explicit coordination based on explicit process modeling, and implicit coordination, based on group awareness, to finally conclude that a good coordination is a subtle mixture of both approaches. For each approach and for the combination of both, requirements and design criteria are given and a study of the state of the art is done.

User Adaptive Visualization of Cooperative Architectural Design

A cooperative design is a social activity inside a group. In this kind of activity, each actor plays a specific role. If each actor wants to realize the actions corresponding to his role, he needs some adaptive information about the cooperation context. The cooperation context of design project is a relational organization where each actor maintains specific relations with other people (designers, project managers, etc.) but also with documents and activities. Such a cooperation context exists in architectural cooperative design which is distinguished by a “mutual prescription” between actors. In architectural design we are in a network model of actors, instead of the hierarchical model that we can find in classical workflow tools. This organization has to be represented in the project management tool to give each user an adaptive vision of the project organization and evolution. The representation and the visualization of such a network, which characterizes each project, is the main objective of the “Relational Model of Cooperation” and the hypermedia view presented in this paper.

From Urban Concept to Urban Engineering: The Contribution of Distributed Collaborative Design to the Management of Urban Projects

The complexity of urban systems is an increasingly common topic in academic literature. Following in the footsteps of the industrial sector, which has understood this issue for many years, urban engineering must also tackle the challenges created by complex systems. Industrial engineering has provided a number of responses to this challenge, including design technologies, which are notably collaborative. It seems possible, at least in theory, to transfer a number of best practice methods and adapt these to the conceptualization of urban development projects (in the initial phase) in order to encourage their global management (in terms of strategic decision making) and their social acceptability. The challenge is then to formulate new methodological models, as well as to create an environment dedicated to their application.

A Proposal for Morphological Operators to Assist Architectural Design

In this paper, we make the assumption that a shape modelling process can rely on the application of a set of morphological operators to initial shapes. We refer to several researches which have attempted to identify such operators. We also attempt to validate this design approach through the analysis of some buildings. A design system based on the combination of these operators could enable the designer to quickly explore a great number of spatial solutions.

A Method for Constructing a Reference Image Database to Assist with Design Process. Application to the Wooden Architecture Domain

Designing architectural projects requires the introduction of references, because design is an activity oriented towards a result which does not yet exist. If we summarise the current categories used in Artificial Intelligence to characterise the different forms of reasoning, we are able to consider that design is more the concern of the induction or the abduction mechanism than the deduction mechanism. Moreover, the main characteristic of the designers activity is to work towards non-routine situations with the use of many references. In this paper we will present method principles to construct a reference image database. These references will enable the designer to further in solving the design problem. To illustrate these reference usage, we choose photographic images belonging to the wooden construction domain We also present at the end of the paper an experiment which aims to evaluate the real help that this reference image database can bring to designers during their creation task.

Strategic paths and memory map: Exploring a building and memorizing knowledge

Restoring archaeology and architecture, we propose a 3D navigation mode based on topographic and cognitive paths. During the exploration of a 3D model, the learner can create his own memory map facilitating the appropriation and memorization of knowledge. In this article, we will correlate the exploration and creation activities. The Great Pyramid of Giza is a support to this work.

A Three-Dimensional Map to Outline Multimedia Path: Representing and Memorizing Heritage and Architectural Information

This article approaches, in a sensitive way, cartography and video games to show that spatial perception and visualization are subjective and are reinforced by some media. By materializing the mental map described by Patricia Marks Greenfield, our proposal allows the learner to outline his path and thus his three-dimensional map. Thus, this map helps the learner in the understanding of archaeological and architectural heritage, by facilitating the representation of information and by increasing its memorization.

Specification and Implementation of a Folding Parametric Operator to Assist Architectural Conception at the Drafting Stage

In the early stage of creation, the architect tests his work hypotheses by making many adjustments while designing. During the sketching phase, the existing modeling tools are not compatible with the iterative nature of this process. So the challenge lies in the definition of a model which will allow the whole creative process with its various trying and going back during the phase of conception. We will illustrate this model by implementing a parametric operator allowing the action of folding. Its parametric specificity will enable the architect, in the design phase, to make the numerous moves and returns required to obtain an optimal shape.

Hypermedia Structuring of the Technical Documentation for the Architectural Aided Design

The definition of an universal structuring model of the technical documentation is arduous, indeed Utopian considering the great number of products and the diversity of relative information. To answer this situation we are trying to develop a general approach of the documentation. The document is the base entity of documentation structuring and it represents a coherent informative unit. We propose a model of document hypermedia structuring. This model allows the definition, the presentation, the navigation and the retrieval of general information on building products by a document manipulation. It is associated with a hypermedia design method adapted to document management. This method proposes, after the identification of the user, three phases of hypermedia definition: data definition, navigation definition and user interface definition. The model of a hypermedia structuring of the technical documentation proposed in this article is at once independent of avalaible information on products, open, and makes easier the addition of new navigational functions.