“...The purpose of this book is to illustrate the result of a many-year-long research effort. We have sought to separate the description of the theoretical part from that of its application. The result is a work organized in five parts, corresponding to the content we indicated above: the first part deals with the design collaboration, its characteristics, and the relationship with the design's quality; the second part examines the characteristics of design knowledge, the principal domains in which it is expressed, and its properties; the third part looks into the theoretical and implementative characteristics of the BKM model; the fourth part defines the characteristics of the ABCD platform and its modes of implementation; the fifth part illustrates the function of a reduced-scale prototype of the ABCD platform and its application to a case study; lastly, the conclusions discuss the future developments of the research's outcome...” GIANFRANCO CARRARA – Full professor of Architecture and Building Design at Sapienza University of Rome. Author of scientific publications on building design, hospital and healthcare design, computer-aided design and design-knowledge representation. Designer of large architectural works in the fields of hospitals and public services ANTONIO FIORAVANTI – Professor of Architecture and Building Design at Sapienza University of Rome. Author scientific publications on CAAD, building and design process models, collaborative design, design theory, A.I. and BIM techniques applied to construction, built heritage, bio-mimicry and digital fabrication. ARMANDO TRENTO – PhD, MSc architecture and building engineer, carries on research activity on methods and models for managing design knowledge in order to enhance multidisciplinary collaboration. He experiences and experiments innovative methods and techniques in design practice. GIANLUIGI LOFFREDA – PhD, MSc architecture and building engineer, develops research activity on knowledge modelling and formalization by means of ontologies and BIM commercial software communication protocols. Energy manager, HVAC and piping engineer, designer and project manager in AEC industry and expert in nuclear site decommissioning. STEFANO CURSI – PhD, MSc architecture and building engineer, has worked, researched and published in the field of ontology-based systems for built heritage knowledge representation and BIM technologies.