A KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEM FOR DETERMINATION OF VALUE OF CONSTRUCTED FACILITY

Value of a product, such as a component of a building, reflects an own er's desire to retain and obtain the product, and this introduces subj ective aspects to the value. The value of a constructed facility depen ds on how much the design details of its components agree with the val ue system of the client. Traditionally, selection of design details is performed by the designers with Little consultation with the client. A successful selection of components of construction needs a knowledge of design alternatives, components' criteria and utilities and agreem ent with the value system of the client. Therefore, determination of v alue of a constructed facility lends itself to a knowledge based appli cation. This paper presents a knowledge based system called VOBE for t he determination of the value of the envelope of a residential buildin g based on the client's value system. To the user VOBE presents design alternative details for each component of the envelope and with the i nput/confirmation of his/her value system it reports the costs and val ues of the components of the building envelope. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scie nce Ltd. All rights reserved.