Abstract
Architectural knowledge, representing an understanding of our built environment and how it functions, is a domain of research of high interest as much to laypeople as to architects themselves, researchers in cultural heritage in general and formal ontologists. In this work, we aim to provide an initial approach to the question of how to model architectural data in a formal ontology structure and consider some of the problems involved. This question is challenging both for the inherent difficulties of the discourse to be modelled but also for the lack of available structured data sources that would distinctly represent the architectural perspective proper, as well as for the contentious nature of the definition of architecture itself. We, therefore, take the step of exploring in broad strokes the possible approaches to architecture, tracing the notion of architecture as idea, process or thing from the literature. On the basis of this enquiry, we propose a model of some top-level referents of architecture using FRBRoo, an extension of CIDOC CRM that can be used to model creative processes. We argue that with the addition of only four classes to this model, to capture certain architecturally specific concepts and activities, we are able to provide an adequate high-level first approach to this problem. Further, by connecting this work to the existing extension of CRMba, which models built work as a system of relations of filled and unfilled spaces, there is a sufficient high-level ontological structure to begin to test for its utility to explore the issues of the relation between architecture as idea, process and thing.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ching, F.D.K.: Architecture: form, space, and order, 1st edn. Wiley, Hoboken, New Jersey (2014)
CIDOC CRM: Current Official Version of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model. The version 6.2 of the reference model. Available at http://www.cidoc-crm.org/docs/cidoc_crm_version_6.2 (2015). Accessed January 2016
FRBRoo: Current Version of the FRBR object-oriented definition and mapping from FRBRER, FRAD and FRSAD. Version 2.3 available at http://www.cidoc-crm.org/docs/frbr_oo/frbr_docs/FRBRoo_V2.3_0_draft (2015). Accessed January 2016
Ronzino, P.: CIDOC CRMba A CRM Extension for buildings archaeology information modelling. (Unpublished doctoral thesis). The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus (2015)
Ronzino, P., Niccolucci, F., Felicetti, A., Doerr, M.: CRMba a CRM extension for the documentation of standing buildings. Int. J. Digital Lib. (2015). doi:10.1007/s00799-015-0160-4
Doerr, M., Iorizzo, D.: The dream of a global knowledge network? A new approach. ACM J. Comput. Cultur. Heritage 1, 1(5), (2008). doi:10.1145/1367080.1367085
Gruninger, M., Fox, M.S.: Methodology for the Design and Evaluation of Ontologies. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Basic Ontological Issues in Knowledge Sharing, IJCAI-95, Montreal (1995)
Guarino, N., Welty, C.A.: An overview of ontoclean. In: Staab, S., Studer, R. (eds.) Handbook on ontologies, pp. 201–220. Springer, Berlin (2009)
Ronzino, P., Amico, N., Niccolucci, F.: Federating specialized digital libraries. In: Dellepiane, M. et al. (eds.). International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (VAST). Aire-la-Ville, Switzerland: Eurographics Association, pp. 97–103. Available at: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2384511 (2011)
Dutton, D.: Artistic crimes. Br. J. Aesthetics 19(4), 302–314 (1979)
Davies, S.: Definitions of art. Cornell University Press, Ithaca (1991)
Ministre de la Culture et Communication: Architecture & Patrimoine. Available at: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/inventai/patrimoine. Accessed January 2016
Fisher, S.: Philosophy of Architecture, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/architecture (2015). Accessed January 2016
Corbusier, L.: Towards a new architecture. Dover Publications, New York (1986)
Goodman, N.: Languages of Art, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2nd edn (1968/1976)
Kivy, P.: Platonism in music: a kind of defense. Grazer Philosophische Studien 19, 109–129 (1983)
Dodd, J.: Works of music: an essay in ontology. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2007)
Currie, G.: An ontology of art. Palgrave Macmillan, London (1989)
Davies, D.: Art as performance. Blackwell, Malden (2004)
Doerr M.: Crofts, N.: Electronic esperanto: the role of the object-oriented CIDOC reference model. Paper presented at the ICHIM-99, 22-26 September, Washington, D.C (1999)
Doerr, M.: The CIDOC conceptual reference module: an ontological approach to semantic interoperability of metadata. AI Magazine 24(3), 75 (2003)
Constantopoulos, P., Bekiari, C., Doerr, M.: POLIS DTD. Available at http://www.ics.forth.gr/CULTUREstandards/paradotea/paradotea_final/K7_odigos_akiniton_perigrafi_2006 (2005). Accessed January 2016
Kahn, L.I.: Silence and light, A+U (1973)
Frugès, C.: Available at http://www.pessac.fr/cite-fruges-le-corbusier.html. Accessed January 2016
Fondation Le Corbusier, Available at http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/corbuweb/morpheus.aspx?sysId=13&IrisObjectId=4705&sysLanguage=fr-fr&itemPos=50&itemSort=fr-fr_sort_string1%20&itemCount=78&sysParentName=&sysParentId=64. Accessed January 2016
Goodman, N.: How buildings mean. Critical Inquiry 11(4), 642–653 (1985)
Acknowledgments
The present work has been supported by the Marie-Curie action ITN-DCH and the ARIADNE project. The ITN-DCH project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under Grant Agreement No. 608013. The ARIADNE project was funded by the European Commission (Grant 313193) under the FP7 INFRA-2012-1.1.3 call. The authors’ opinion do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission. The authors are thankful to the Foundation Le Corbusier and ADAGP for the use of pictures in the present paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Guillem, A., Bruseker, G. & Ronzino, P. Process, concept or thing? Some initial considerations in the ontological modelling of architecture. Int J Digit Libr 18, 289–299 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-016-0188-0
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-016-0188-0