Design shells: A formalism for prototype refinement in knowledge-based design systems

The paper presents an approach for the development of a specialized shell for design. The concept of a knowledge-based design shell is proposed as a medium for encoding and using structured schema of generic design knowledge. The prototype as one kind of significant class of generic knowledge in architectural design is introduced. The significance of the concept of a design shell is discussed with respect to formalization, implementation, application and operation. A generative prototype design shell is proposed, defined and elaborated. The schema of generative prototype shell provides a vehicle for the representation of both the syntactic and the semantic content in design generation. A method for representing various types of knowledge in these schema is proposed. The method exploits the characteristics of both rules and frames, and integrates them in a single schema. A plan type of a row house, as one kind of significant class of design prototypes in architectural design, a specific design knowledge in GPRS, is demonstrated in a system called PRODS. The implementation and significance of such an approach is knowledge-based design systems containing knowledge of multiple prototypes is discussed. Relevant future research topics are identified.