This paper presents CBDBrief system, which uses case-based reasoning (CBR) technology to address the problem of the design brief development and the dynamic generation of design plans. The client's design brief is a key business process in construction industry. In spite of the widely recognised concept in determining the value of a construction project, the brief remains an under-researched area as far as IT is concerned, and also the conventional process of briefing does not reflect the requirement changes of the client. This is due to the fact that the brief task is highly complex and design tasks are wicked problems and therefore are not accessible to structured methodologies or model-based problem solving. The complexity and the uncertainty that characterise these processes make them an ideal domain for case-based reasoning.

CBDBrief proposes an alternative model for developing design brief which promote collaborative working between the client, designer and the builder by reusing records of successes and failures of previous construction stored in an integrated object database.

To tackle the complexity of brief cases, CBDBrief adopts the decomposition of cases into a sensible hierarchy of sub-cases whilst ensuring that sub-cases from different buildings can be sensibly recomposed to produce novel designs plans. Also, CBDBrief introduces cases version concept to keep track of the participants' decisions and to reflect the client organisations state of dynamic changes and allow intermediate situation to be retrieved and amended as the brief, design and building unfold.

Such a system will significantly shorten the design process by bridging the gap between the brief and the detailed design stages. It is expected that the project will break new ground in a most difficult area to manage i.e. the brief-design area, and will be the nucleus for future specifications and developments of IT systems in this field.

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