The qualitative structure of built environments

This paper provides an ontological analysis of built environments. It shows that boundaries are ontologically salient features of built environments a nd that there are different kinds of boundaries that that need to be consid ered. It discusses in particular the important role of fiat boundaries. At the level of objects built environments are formed by partition forming obj ects and populated by non-partition forming objects. The underlying partiti on structure is the main organizational structure of a built environment. N on-partition forming objects are potentially movable and their movement is constrained by the barrier properties of the boundaries of other objects fo rming or populating the environment. This paper argues that the qualitative formalization of built environments needs to take into account: (1) the fundamental role of boundaries, (2) the distinction between bona-fide and fiat boundaries and objects, (3) the dif ferent character of constraints on relations between these different kinds of boundaries and objects, (4) the distinction between partition forming an d non-partition forming objects, and (5) the fundamental organizational str ucture of regional partitions. It discusses the notion of object-boundary s ensitive rough location and shows that a formalization based on this notion takes these points into account.