**3. Knowledge recycling in design**

The scope of this research is limited to architectural design. Within this scope, building design generation can be considered the core and ultimate goal of knowledge cycle management. For the purpose of this study, the source of information in this cycle will be building precedents. As such, the knowledge cycle starts from data as embedded in precedent documented representations (see Figure 1). Upon interpretations of raw data and assignment of semantic attributes to them, data mutate into information. The latter, upon organizing and classifying its contents, can be transformed into abstract knowledge prototypes. These, in turn, subject to proper representation methods can be translated into applied knowledge models. Combined with informed design methodologies, the applied knowledge models can be implemented to produce new designs that may be documented to represent new precedents that, if communicated properly, may represent a new point of departure for future designs. The intention of design knowledge recycling models is to translate their contents into applied knowledge that can be transformed into new design products. They can be arranged in the pre-design phase of designing to embody chunks of knowledge as needed in order to interpolate their information to derive new alternatives. The proposed models are introduced and discussed in the knowledge modeling section that follows.
