Domain Centered Design Support

Design is a creative activity by which artefacts are brought into existence. In engineering domains, this activity is far from being free. It is constrained by a large body of knowledge. In this paper we discuss mechanisms for integrating domain knowledge within design databases in ways that make it most effective for the designer, and most accessible for review and update. In particular, we focus on the aggregation relationship. Aggregation is a very common relationship in design, with very specific properties. Explicit representation of the aggregation relationship enables a whole range of inferences and constraint enforcement by the system.