1 Introduction

Building construction faces problems in information management and communication throughout all the designing, engineering, realisation and maintenance stages.

Figure 1: Schematic representation of partners, activities and objectives in the building construction field

The architectural project tends to be complex because it must integrate a growing number of regulation requirements and constraints:

• user conveniences (accessibility, acoustic and thermic conveniences, etc.),

• construction (paraseismic properties, complex cost management, etc.),

• realisation (product selection, technical regulations, quality management, reduced construction project duration).

• management of the dynamic information generated by a growing number of partners with distinct skills and viewpoints.

Thanks to the new technologies, which enable a better information exchange between all the partners involved, productivity in the building production activity can be improved. Starting from practice observation, the goal of our research program is to share and extract data from the building description and to keep track of all the information changes and updates throughout the building's lifecycle.

To reach these objectives, it is necessary to build an agile information system framework that would be able to support this data processing. In addition, it means that there must be a normative approach to the description of the building elements in order to ease access to and re-use of technical solutions. Many research programs around the world are focused on these normalisation topics in the building field and more in industrial fields. We will also talk about re-engineering and knowledge capitalisation which were first...