The knowledge of regulations governing the construction of buildings needs to be included in CAD systems if building designers are to use computers in the design process. At present, building regulations only implicitly contain models of buildings. These models need to be made more explicit for incorporation within intelligent design systems. Outlines one way to explicitly incorporate these building reference models using an object-oriented paradigm. The goal is to develop systems that incorporate both geometric and nongeometric (technical and administrative) information about the design process in order to aid the designer in his task. In order to provide a flexible system, it is proposed that the building reference model (objects in the design and the relationships between the objects) be separated from the technical requirements or constraints prescribed by the regulation.

KEYWORDS: buildings, designing, expert systems, calculating, regulations, computer aided design, computers, building regulations.