Modelling the knowledge of urban complexity: The role of ontologies in spatial design tasks

The interest of the present research is focused on knowledge mechanisms in the spatial domain. Given a space and a set of entities the goal is understanding the structure of intelligent analysis and classification of architectural design outcomes in terms of complexity: see an architectagent's ability of detecting continuous/non-continuous design items within a spatial set contingent on the needs of the agent. Adopting a cognitive approach, we analyse the design process in architecture and ponder about cognitive processes applied to the space-andproject nexus, in order to understand the role that creativity plays in the design process and the way in which variations and constraints in it shape creativity during the development of any architectural project. The design process in architecture can resort to ‘typology’ and ‘types’ of artificially built spatial entities which conform themselves to complex functional historical social determinants in a non-deterministic process (change, creativity, convenience, etc.): typology and types are abstractions built on systems of mutual relationships among context components, the use of which as supports in computer-based ontological analysis and classification calls for specific sets of axioms (Bhatt et al., 2009; Guarino et al., 2002).