CONCEPTUAL: An Expert System for Conceptual Structural Design

In the conceptual design stage of a building the number of possible building configurations is enormous. The building systems selected in this stage affect the building cost much more than any other decision made in the subsequent design stages. Currently designers base their decisions mostly on experience and intuition. Since this process is not algorithmic, the best possible design is not guaranteed. In this article a model of the process by which a human expert arrives at a conceptual design for a building is presented. Based on this model, CONCEPTUAL, an automated knowledge-based expert system has been developed by the authors to aid in the conceptual design stage of buildings.