Expressing standards for

computer-aided building
design
Fred I Stahl, Richard N Wright, Steven J Fenves* and James R Harrist

requires systems reprogramming. Where a new or

This article discusses a set of techniques for expressing and revised provision involves modifying the sequence of checks
organizing the contents of building design standards, and or the checking method, the cost of upgrading a given
suggests that application of these techniques, in conjunction CABD software system can become quite high. These
with a restructuring of data flow strategies within CABD factors increase the likelihood that inapplicable or obsolete
(computer-aided building design) software systems, are systems will be used in practice 2 .
needed to reduce the effort and cost required to maintain Dealing with this dilemma demands that the software
CABD systems applicable and current. The article stresses engineer rethink the structure of CABD systems. In
application of these techniques to analysing the clarity, particular, two problems must be solved. First, the contents
consistency, and completeness of existing building design of building codes and standards must be removed from
standards, and to developing new standards. The SASE CABD checking routines and placed in a readily accessible
(Standards Analysis, Synthesis, and Expression) software external database. This separation will permit the checking
system, a convenient implementation of the techniques, is routine to serve as a pure constraint processor, comparing
presented. The method of use of standards represented by project description data (obtained from the project file)
these techniques within a CABD environment Is discussed against generic standards data (obtained from a distinct
as are Implications of the logical expression of standards external file). Second, the contents of building standards
for constructing expert systems for the building process. must be expressed and organized in a way which makes
them readily accessible for constraint processing, as well as
building design, standards, SASE for low-cost maintenance. Figure 1 illustrates a CABD
system design based on these objectives.
CAD is fast becoming the ordinary method used for
engineering design, as evidenced by rapid developments in A complex technical problem
the electronics, aircraft, and automotive industries.
However, building construction is a sector of the economy According to Lopez 3 , building design procedures are often
in which most of the potential increase in productivity driven by the form of applicable codes and standards, since
from the computer technology has not yet been realized I . these documents provide criteria for both bounding and
Significant among the many factors causing this lag are the evaluating design solutions. Lopez stressesthat the problem
diversity of codes and standards governing building design
and construction, and the frequency with which these
regulations change. These points have particular conse- I
Analysis program

quences for CABD software systems. In practice, the high t i

cost of software maintenance may thwart substantially
users' attempts to maintain software that is both broadly
applicable across various regulatory jurisdictions as well as t i
current.
The applicability and currency of CABD software
systems in widespread use today are costly to maintain a
chiefly because provisions of standards against which design Project-specific Generic .

decisions must be checked are 'hard coded' into the systems'

component selection and proportioning routines. This
applies particularly to those intended for structural engi- I I
neering design. Thus, the alteration of even a single provision ' kJ \ X,~ Imodule I I
• Generic standards ~ ....... ! ~ '.....
-N~i~ol stundards ~= ~ I i ~ ~ ' )
This article is a c o n t r i b u t i o n o f the National Bureau o f Standards -~l~ ~ ~~i;~'=1--" / r~"~-~ I
• Product storid(lrds / I - - - ~ I ! ........ / ',
Center f o r Building Technology, National Bureau o f Standards, I I

Washington IX: 20234, USA • 1

* D e p a r t m e n t o f Civil Engineering, Carnegie-Mellon University, b

Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
Figure 1. CABD system organization (a) traditional and
~'Structural Consultants, Denver, CO 80206, USA (b) proposed

volume 15 number 6 november 1983 0010/4485/83/060329-06 $03.00 © 1983 Butterworth & Co (Publishers) Ltd 329
of providing an automated design system with necessary qualities of buildings, building products, materials, or
data on standards is not trivial, and suggests that the building processes. The term includes legal building
solution lies in letting computerized forms of standards regulations, standards such as those of the International
appear as intrinsic parts of the computer operating system Standards Organization, or proprietary specifications.
to engineering design routines. In this way, checking a Standards are used for communication between buyer and
structural element of the building for conformity with a seller and for protection of public health, safety and welfare.
standard would be no more difficult than computing some Standards are generally developed following the principle of
function. Moreover, changes in a standard would, following due process in notification, balloting, and resolution of
Lopez's approach3, be transparent to design applications dissent. The process of promulgation and maintenance may
programs. Thus, modification to standards may be thought be of long duration. Modifications and interpretations may
of as equivalent to changing the way a function is referenced occur without participation of consultation with the experts
in a program. Lopez warns, however, that such transparency who initially drafted the standard.
may be difficult to achieve. His present research, sponsored It is not surprising that problems arise from the processes
by the National Bureau of Standards, seeks to develop a for formulating and using standards. Society's rapidly
multilevel database strategy based on the ANSl/SPARC changing demands for building qualities, such as energy
architecture 4 . This approach, which permits each level of conservation, and rapidly developing technologies, such as
an application system to have a unique 'view' of the data- air quality measurement, lead to many new subjects for
base, provides certain useful mechanisms enabling databases building standardization and frequent changes in the
and application software to be modified independently of standards. As a result users find it difficult to:
one another.
• locate all relevant provisions in a standard
• understand and correctly apply the provisions they select
Implications for expert systems
Building codes and standards represent the accumulated These points are especially crucial to the correct inclusion
knowledge and experience of experts in numerous subject of a standard's provisions within a CABD software system.
areas. These documents not only provide computational The properties of a standard can be expressed at three
formulae, measurement methods and performance criteria levels:
essential to building analysis and design, they also contain • Individual provisions need to be:
rules-of-thumb and other heuristic devices which have with- o unique - the provision yields the one and only result
stood the tests of time and practical use. Thus, building in any possible application
codes and standards also may be thought of as knowledge- o complete - the provision applies explicitly in any
bases for building industry expert systems. In particular, possible situation
under the proposed model of CABD, a system might be o correct - the result of applying the provision is
controlled by an intelligent manager using expert system consistent with the objective of the standard
technology to drive the design process toward conformity • Relations between provisions should makethem:
with the overall project specification (which includes both o connected - explicit cross references show the data
generic as well as project specific requirements). In addition, required to use each provision and the use stipulated
it is conceivable that the entire body of codes and standards for the data produced by each provision
could be replaced by expert systems which guide building o acyclic - the data produced by evaluation of a
design, regulatory and construction tasks in realtime. Like provision need not be known prior to its evaluation
the proposed model of CABD, expert systems applications (no loops in logic)
in the building process also require a fundamental rethinking o consistent - uniform logical and technical basesare
of the organization and expression of information contained provided for comparable provisions
within building codes and standards. • The organization of the standard should be:
o complete - explicit scope so a user knows what
Logical expression of standards: subjects and qualities are covered by the standard
a common denominator o clear - the arrangement and display of provisions is
such that the user of CABD checking routine readily
The current article presents a set of techniques for
finds all provisions applicable to a given query
expressing and organizing the contents of standards.
Application of these techniques results in a logical expres-
sion of both the substantive content and physical organiza- TECHNIQUES FOR EXPRESSING THE
tion of a standard. This form of expression is essential for CONTENT AND ORGANIZATION OF A
achieving the model of CABD, and also the view of expert STANDARD
systems, described above. The techniques also permit tests
of completeness, consistency, and clarity to be conducted Modelling provisions of a standard
on proposed standards before they are adopted and promul- A provision is defined here as a statement stipulaUng that a
gated. The remainder of the article discusses models for product or process shall have or be assigned some quality, A
expressing, organizing, and analyzing the content of number of forms and types of provisions fit this definition:
standards and describes the essential elements of the SASE
software system developed at the National Bureau of • a performance requirement, eg 'the system shall
Standards. maintain an adequate supply of hot water'
• a performance criterion, eg 'hot water temperature shall
PROPERTIES OF A BUILDING STANDARD be controlled between 40°C and 50°C '
• a prescriptive criterion, eg 'the hot water tank shall have
As applied in the building industry, the term 'standard' a capacity of 150 litres'
includes all types of formal documents used to define the • a determination or function, eg 'the flow q = av'

330 computer.aided design

For purposes of modelling provisions it is necessary to
stipulate that a provision should have a single subject and
require or assign a single quality. In the model a data item is
considered to be associated with each provision. Two types
of data items are used to represent provisions. For require-
ments or criteria the value of the data item can be either
satisfied or violated. For a determination or function the
value can be numerical or a term such as 'red' for colour.
Recent work s'6 provides guidance on expressing provi-
sions. An example is using the active voice and making Co d
explicit the performance attribute of the provision in order
to promote clarity, consistency and correctness. Often, 3ond
however, the logic of a provision is too complex to express
E RI tie RI pie RI
in a simple declarative sentence. Then a decision table is
used to model the provision. Consider the following provi-
sion, from an early draft of tentative seismic provisions 7, Figure 2. Decision tree for soil profile type (SPT)
that assigns a value to a datum soil profile type (SPT):
The following data items are needed to evaluate the datum
Site effects on building response shall be established soil profile type:
based on three profile factors defined as follows:
• surface condition type
So//prof//e type A is a profile with • overlying soil type
• rock of any characteristic, either shalelike or crystal- • overlying soil depth
line in nature. Such material may be characterized by • soil type
a shear wave velocity greater than 2 500 ft/s, or • depth of clay
• stiff soil conditions where the soil depth is less than • use of piles to support foundation
200 ft and the soil types overlying rock are stable
deposits of sands, gravels, or stiff clays Table 1 shows the decision table representation of the
provision.
So//prof//e type B is a profile with deep cohesionless or The clarity and completeness of the provision itself may
stiff clay conditions including sites where the soil depth be analysed by generating a decision tree corresponding to
exceeds 200 ft and the soil types overlying rock are the decision table, as shown in Figure 2. For clarity we note
stable deposits of sands, gravels, or stiff clays. that no terminal node fits more than one rule. If that were
to occur there would be either redundancy (two or more
So//prof//e type C is a profile with soft-to-medium-stiff rules that match the same set of condition entries and have
clays and sands, characterized by 30 ft or more of soft- the same action value) or contradiction [two or more rules
to-medium stiff clay with or without intervening layers that match the same set of condition entries but have
of sand or other cohesionless soils. different action values). For completeness we trace each set
In locations where the soil type is not known in sufficient of condition entries leading to an E [else) node in the
detail to determine the soil profile type and where terminal row to see that no possible set of conditions lacks
foundations are supported without the use of piles, soil an explicit action value. The example in Figure 2 raises the
profile B or C shall be used whichever produces the larger following questions:
base shear.
• What soil profile type applies when condition 6 is false
(F) and 7 is true?
T a b l e 1. Decision table f o r soil profile t y p e ( S P T ) • What soil profile type applies when condition 6 is true
and conditions 1,2 and 4 are false?
Conditions Rules • What soil profile type applies when conditions 6 and 4
are true and conditions 1,2 and 5 are false?
1 2 3 4 5 E
1 Rock at surface T These problems were noted for the drafters of the provisions,
2 Overlying soft type is stable who subsequently responded by accounting for them 7.
sand, gravel, or stiff clay - T T - Principles for forming decision tables and trees are given in
3 Overlying soil depth < 200 ft + T F texts such as Pollack a. The techniques used elsewhere by
4 Soil type is soft clay T the authors are described in 9 and a result for the revised
5 Depth of clay > 30 ft - T
6 Soil type is known + + + + I: example provision is given in Harris et d t ° .
7 Piles support foundation F When a clear and complete representation of the SPT
provision is passed to a CABD checking routine for evalua-
Actions Action entries tion, the checker is provided with an explicit list of input
1 SPT = A X X data it must obtain from the project description database
2 SPT = B X (ie the values of the data items listed above). Once this data
3 SPT=C X arrives at the checker, a unique rule may be established and
4 SPT=B orC X the prevailing SPT determined. An analogous procedure is
5 Else rule
used for establishing and evaluating rules by expert systems
Legend: T = true, F = false,. = immaterial, + = implied true, designed to emulate conformance checking for complex
- = implied false. structures.

volume 15 number 6 november 1983 331

Modelling relations among provisions Building

A standard consists of a system of interrelated provisions.

Sructurol system Interior surfaces
An information network is used to model these inter-
relations. Each node of the network represents a data item.
Consider an excerpt of a provision from 7 that assignsa a Wall Floor
value to the response modification coefficient (R), as
shown in Table 2.
To evaluate the response modification coefficient [the Performance attribute
data item R) requires the availability of the ingredient data:
Safety Serviceability
• the type of structural system/GFC)
• the type of vertical seismic resisting system ISRS) b
• whether ordinary or special moment frame (FRT)
• frame material (FM) Environment
• whether moment frames are capable of resisting total
prescribed forces IFRTF) Force loads Other agents

These data items are shown as nodes of the information

network in Figure 3. The arrows on the branches connecting Figure 4. Trees of classifiers: (a) entity tree, (b) performance
the ingredient nodes with their dependents (R for GFC, attribute tree and (c) environmental condition tree
SRS, FRT, FM and FRTF) show the precedence relations
among the data.
The information network is extended as further relations because R is in its own ingredient subnetwork. In this
between provisions are considered. Thus R is an ingredient instance the loop seems easy to break by removing the
to the seismic design coefficient (Cs) which is ingredient to requirements from the provision for R. It still can be applied
the seismic shear force (V) that in turn is ingredient to the in the standard but need not be an ingredient of R.
total prescribed force (TPF). This extension of the network The precedence relations recorded by the information
has been simplified for clarity. network are essential for sequencing checking calculations
The network also may reveal logical flaws in the for computer use, and for controlling problem-solving flow
standard. For example, because the wording of the provision in expert systems. Logical methods based on the information
for R contains the requirement 'Seismic force resistance is network n provide such sequencing, avoid use of incorrect
provided by ordinary or special moment frames capable of data, and minimize computational efforts for new data as
resisting the total prescribed force', TPF may be interpreted design variables are changed.
as an ingredient to R. With this interpretation a loop exists
Organizing a standard
Table 2. An excerpt from the Applied Technololw Council In concept, organization includes both the scope and
Tentative Provisionsfor the Developmentof Seismic arrangement eta standard s . Scope is defined as the products
Resulationsfor Buildlnp (see Table 3B in~) or processesand the set of their required qualities to which
the standard applies. A clear statement of scope tells a user
Type of Vertical seismic Coefficient
what he can expect to find in the standard. Arrangement
structural system resisting system R deals with the means of accessto locate pertinent provisions.
The arrangement of a standard is expressed most visibly
Moment resisting frame Special moment frames: by the headings (classifiers) in the table of contents, their
system ordering, and their hierarchy (chapters, sections, etc). The
(A structural system Steel 8
an essentially complete Reinforced concrete 7 model for organization of a standard can be illustrated
space frame providing briefly as it is applied to performance requirements. The
support for vertical loads. Ordinary moment frames: initial definition of scope is accomplished by establishing a
Seismic force resistance classification for the subjects (or 'things' covered) and for
is provided by ordinary Steel 4½ the predicates [or required qualities) of each requirement.
or special moment frames Reinforced concrete 2
capable of resisting total The trees of classifiers are shown in Figure 4 for the
prescribed forces) structural part of a performance standard for residential
buildings12. The trees follow the logical criteria for classifi-
cation of being exhaustive (over the desired scope) and
mutually exclusive. An outline of the standard is developed
by combining systematically the trees of classifiers (includ-
ing all provisions to which the classifiers point) as shown in
Table 3~ . Moreover, the standards writer is provided both
with a topdown tool for defining the scope and provisions
of a new standard, and a bottom-up tool to aid in reorganiz-
ing existing provisions.
In a CABD environment, the classifier hierarchy provides
direct access to the requirements to be checked. Thus, in
the example shown in Figure 4, a command such as 'check
walls for serviceability' directs the checker to evaluate
Figure 3. Partial information network requirement K6 for each wall in the project database.

332 computer-aided design

SASE SOFTWARE SYSTEM

Purpose and function

The SASE software system is a computer system designed
to aid in the formulation and expression of codes and Interactioncontrol I[_ J Analysis
standards. SASE permits the user to model provisions of a subsystem r -I subsystem
standard, model relations among provisions, and to I
organize a standard to ease the referencing of interrelated
provisions. These capabilities are based on logical founda-
tions presented earlier.
I--
I Databasemanagement system
The primary functions of SASE are to ensure that new
standards (as well as modifications of existing ones) are I I
clear, consistent, and correct, and to permit the encoding of I I
standards into machine-processable form. This feature i I
establishes a direct link between constraints imposed by I I
standards and constraint processing in CAD. Figure 5. SA$E system overview

System overview
SASE is orientated primarily towards interactive use. The
central component of the system is the interaction control
subsystem which accepts user messages,interprets them,
causes specified functions to be performed and generates
the appropriate output messages.The interaction control
subsystem also provides a 'help' facility for the user. The
analysis subsystem performs command functions to create,
change, examine, or remove information concerning a
standard. Both the interaction control and analysis sub-
systems communicate with the database management sub-
system. The database management subsystem consists of a
data manager and the SASE database.
Figure 5 illustrates the organization of SASE. The SASE
database contains three categories of data including: I
Substantive I Or~nal
• organizational entities content I scheme
o information identifying standards, versions and Figure 6. SASE database organization
chapters
• substantive content of provisions The organization of SASE data is illustrated in Figure 6.
o data in the form of functions and tables The database distinguishes between
• organization classifiers
• basic entities
o which permit the content of a standard to be
o supplied by the user through the SASE command
outlined and.indexed
oriented language
• derived entities
Table 3. Example of organization of a performance standard o data produced by SASE during the execution of
certain commands
Full permutation Selected outline

BUILDING BUILDING Command orientated language

STRUCTU RAL SYSTEM STRUCTU RAL SYSTEM
SAFETY SAFETY
The user communicates with SASE through a command-
FORCE LOADS (R1) FORCE LOADS (R1) orientated language. User input typically consists of four
OTHER AGENTS (R2) OTHER AGENTS (R2) elements:
SERVICEABILITY SERVICEABILITY • a command
FORCE LOADS (R3) FORCE LOADS (R3)
OTHER AGENTS (R4) OTHER AGENTS (R4) • an object
I NTE RIOR SU RFACES I NTERIOR SU RFACES • data labels
SAFETY WALLS (R5) • qualifiers
FORCE LOADS FLOORS (R6)
WALLS Four categories of commands are available in SASE to
FLOORS create, change, examine, or remove data from a standards
OTHER AGENTS database. Object categories include
WALLS
FLOORS • organizational entities
SERVICEABILITY o identifying information for standards, versions and
FORCE LOADS
WALLS (R5) chapters
FLOORS (R6) • basic entities
OTHER AGENTS o functions, tables
WALLS • derived entities
FLOORS o outlines, trees, networks, etc

volume 15 number 6 november 1983 333

Data labels permit the user to attach titles, comments, and project developers to compare decisions made under
other kinds of information to headers and data. Qualifiers different jurisdictional constraints quickly and cheaply, and
allow the user to narrow the intent of a particular command, the ability of standards writers rapidly to evaluate the
eg to specify some range of data items to be processed. potential impact of changes in a standard.
They also allow the user to transmit special instructions in Finally, it is suggested that techniques for the logical
connection with a command, eg, to save the results of an expression of codes and standards can also be used to
operation. Figure 7 provides examples of the SASE construct technical knowledge bases essential to expert
command-orientated language. systems. Intelligent control of CABD software, and realtime
guidance for regulatory and construction tasks and for
building design 13 are among the applications of expert
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
systems to the building process.
This paper has discussed a set of techniques for expressing
and organizing the contents of generic building design
standards, and has suggested that application of these tech- REFERENCES
niques, in conjunction with a restructuring of data flow 1 US Government Accounting Office 'GAO agencies
strategies within CABD software systems, are needed to should encourage a greater computer use on federal
reduce the effort and cost inherent in maintaining CABD design projects' Report LCD-81-7 Washington DC,
systems applicable and current. The paper stresses applica- USA (October 1980)
tion of the techniques to analysing the clarity, consistency 2 Stahl, F I The standards interface for computer-aided
and completeness of existing standards, and to developing design NBSl R 83-2671, National Bureau of Standards,
new standards. The SASE software system, a convenient UK/April 1983)
implementation of the techniques, was presented.
A considerable portion of the computational effort in 3 Lopez,L A Personal communications on research in
CABD is dedicated to checking design-specific properties progress, University of Illinois Department of Civil
against generic criteria, or constraint processing. By Engineering, Champaign-Urbana, I L, USA (1983)
restructuring CABD systems to separate standards criteria 4 Tsichritzis, D C and Klug, A (eds) 'The ANSI/X3/
from design-checking routines, and by applying modern SPARC data basemanagementframework' Information
database management techniques to ensure the applicability, Syst. No 3 ~1978) pp 173-191
currency and accessibility of standards criteria, measurable
savings in overall building delivery can be achieved through 5 Fenves,S J, Rankin, K and Tejuja, H K The structure
the use of CABD systems. Such savings will result primarily of building specif/cat/ons Building Science Series90,
from the ability of CABD systems to respond quickly to National Bureau of Standards, Washington DC, USA
periodic changes in codes and standards, the ability of (September 1976)
6 Harris, J R and Wright, R N Systematic organization of
standards and codes Special Publication 518, National
Bureau of Standards, Washington DC, USA (August
CREATE STANDARD NAME STD~I TITLE 'ABC 999-82' 1978) pp 145-160
COMMENT 'THIS IS A SAMPLE S T A N D A R D ' *
7 Applied Technology Council Tentative provisions for
CRE STA NA STD~I T 'ABC 999-82' CaM 'THIS IS A the development of seismic regulations for buildings
SAMPLE S T A N D A R D ' t Special Publication 510, National Bureau of Standards,
Creates (opens a file for) a new standard named Washington DC, USA (June 1978)
STD~1, with title ABC 999-82, and with comment 8 Pollack,S L Decision tables: theory and practice Wiley-
information, Interscience, New York, NY, USA (1971)
USE CHAPTER NAME CHPT1 9 Wright, R N, Harris, J R, Melin, J W, Tar/s, R and
Albarran, C 'Technology for the formulation and
USE CHA CHPT1
expression of specifications' Civil Eng. Studies
Makes ready SPSS for chapter-level processing; data in Structural Research Series Nos 423,424 and 425,
Chapter named CHPT1 will be manipulated. University of Illinois, IL, USA (December 1975)
M O D I F Y TABLE REFERENCE 1 ~ 1 CONDITION 1 STUB 10 Harris, J R, Fenves, S J and Wright, R N Analysis of
'SOIL TYPE = ROCK' tentative seismic design provisions for buildings
Technical Note 1100, National Bureau of Standards,
M a D TAB R 1 ~ 1 CONDITION 1 STUB ' SOIL TYPE = Washington DC, USA (July 1979)
ROCK'
11 Wright, R N, Bayer, L T and Melin, J W 'Constraint
Change (modify) the condition I stub in table I~I to processing in design' J. Struct. Division American
read "soil type = rock", and delete previous contents
of the condition 1 stub.
Society of Civil Engineers Vol 98 No St1 (January
1971 ) pp 481-494
DISPLAY TREE REFERENCE 1~)1
12 Faison, T K Performance criteria resource document
DIS TRE R 1~¢1 for innovative construction N BSl R 77-13] 6, National
Bureau of Standards, Washington DC, USA (November
Display table and decision tree for datum 1 ~ 1 . 1977)
*Full command 13 Sriram, D, Maher, M L, Bielak, l and Fenves, S J Expert
tAbbreviated form permitted by SASE systems for C/vii Engineering: a survey DepL of Civil
Engineering, Report R-82, Carnegie-Mellon University,
Figure 7. Examples o f SASE user input Pittsburgh, PA, USA IJuly 1982) p 137

334 computer-aided design