Function-Behaviour-Structure ontology

The Function-Behaviour-Structure ontology – or short, the FBS ontology – is an ontology of design objects, i.e. things that have been or can be designed. The Function-Behaviour-Structure ontology conceptualizes design objects in three ontological categories: function (F), behaviour (B), and structure (S). The FBS ontology has been used in design science as a basis for modelling the process of designing as a set of distinct activities. This article relates to the concepts and models proposed by John S. Gero and his collaborators. Similar ideas have been developed independently by other researchers.

The ontological categories composing the Function-Behaviour-Structure ontology are defined as follows:

The three ontological categories are interconnected: Function is connected with behaviour, and behaviour is connected with structure. There is no connection between function and structure.

The Function-Behaviour-Structure ontology is the basis for two frameworks of designing: the FBS framework, and its extension, the situated FBS framework. They represent the process of designing as transformations between function, behaviour and structure, and subclasses thereof.

The original version of the FBS framework was published by John S. Gero in 1990. It applies the FBS ontology to the process of designing, by further articulating the three ontological categories. In this articulation, behaviour (B) is specialised into expected behaviour (Be) (the "desired" behaviour) and behaviour derived from structure (Bs) (the "actual" behaviour). In addition, two further notions are introduced on top of the existing ontological categories: requirements (R) that represent intentions from the client that come from outside the designer, and description (D) that represents a depiction of the design created by the designer. Based on these articulations, the FBS framework proposes eight processes claimed as fundamental in designing, specifically:

The eight fundamental processes in the FBS framework are illustrated using a turbocharger design process.

The situated FBS framework was developed by John S. Gero and Udo Kannengiesser in 2000 as an extension of the FBS framework to explicitly capture the role of situated cognition or situatedness in designing.

The basic assumption underpinning the situated FBS framework is that designing involves interactions between three worlds: the external world, the interpreted world and the expected world. They are defined as follows:

The three worlds are interconnected by four classes of interaction:

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