CLASSIFICATION OF PRECEDENTS A Hybrid Approach to Indexing and Retrieving Design Cases in SEED (a Software Environment for the Early Phases of Building Design) Z. AYGEN AND U. FLEMMING

An efficient indexing of past solutions is crucial to case-based design (CBD) systems performing complex retrieval on large case-bases. This paper suggests a hybrid approach to the indexing and retrieval of design precedents. The suggested approach accounts for the issues of classification manifested in architectural discussions on type and CBD literature. The indexing scheme integrates description-logic based representation for classification and an object-based representation for precedents. The hybrid scheme constitutes a basis for the implementation of a generic case indexing and retrieval mechanism for SEED.