Research on a model of component-based cooperative design of buildings

With the development of information technology, there have been big changes in world economy from 90s. It forms a constant global market which is full of much competition. Design not only lays on individual capacity, but also closely suits to the requirement of developing market. CSCWD (computer supported cooperative work in design) provides a supporting environment in which participants with different backgrounds and knowledge can work together to reduce the producing cycle, to increase the product quality and to accelerate the product proceeding. The cooperation is the key to assure the success of product design and the capacity of competition in market. It´s a challenge for the method of traditional software development to develop cooperative design environment based on special area. This paper describes a method of component-based design of buildings, which is intended to facilitate the cooperation and assure the requirement of buildings design. The difference from the common software system is that it fully thinks the property in design of buildings and the support of cooperation. It comprises of communication component, the interface that organize the software of buildings design, the database that stores the component of buildings design, the mechanism of data changing and the visual environment. It satisfies the requirement of cooperative design of buildings.