Intelligent Computing in Engineering and Architecture : 13th EG-ICE Workshop 2006

Providing computer support for tasks in civil engineering and architecture is hard. Projects can be complex, long and costly. Firms that contribute to design, construction and maintenance are often worth less than the value of their projects. Everyone in the field is justifiably risk adverse. Contextual variables have a strong influence making generalization difficult. The product life cycle may exceed one hundred years and functional requirements may evolve during the service life. It is therefore no wonder that practitioners in this area have been so reluctant to adopt advanced computing systems. After decades of research and industrial pilot projects, advanced computing s- tems are now being recognized by many leading practitioners to be strategically - portant for the future profitability of firms involved in engineering and architecture. Engineers and architects with advanced computing knowledge are hired quickly in the market place. Closer collaboration between research and practice is leading to more comprehensive validation processes for new research ideas. This is feeding devel- ment of more useful systems, thus accelerating progress. These are exciting times. th This volume contains papers that were presented at the 13 Workshop of the Eu- pean Group for Intelligent Computing in Engineering. Over five days, 70 participants from around the world listened to 59 paper presentations in a single session format.