OntoBPR: Ontology-based workflow and concept for building permit reviews

Abstract

Commonly, building permits are executed and checked manually and not digitized, requiring a high level of effort. In Germany, building codes in practice are currently not yet designed to be automatically checked during the building permit process. To avoid a digital disruption in planning buildings and structures, this paper presents a workflow in which building codes are represented as machine-readable knowledge graphs and ontologies. The building permit process is analyzed, and possible applications of ontology-based knowledge representations are explored. An ontology-based building permit review (OntoBPR) is proposed, reusing two existing ontologies for modeling the permit review workflow for representing the building codes. The paper aligns the two ontologies, validated through a case study conducted using Shapes Constraint Language (SHACL) rules generated from the building code knowledge graphs. The result of the paper is a viable concept and workflow, prototypically implemented for the OntoBPR.