A Categorical Approach to Semantic Interoperability across Building Lifecycle
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866908783432695808 |
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| author | Nagy, Zoltan Wisnesky, Ryan Carlson, Kevin Subrahmanian, Eswaran Zardini, Gioele |
| author_facet | Nagy, Zoltan Wisnesky, Ryan Carlson, Kevin Subrahmanian, Eswaran Zardini, Gioele |
| contents | Buildings generate heterogeneous data across their lifecycle, yet integrating these data remains a critical unsolved challenge. Despite three decades of standardization efforts, over 40 metadata schemas now span the building lifecycle, with fragmentation accelerating rather than resolving. Current approaches rely on point-to-point mappings that scale quadratically with the number of schemas, or universal ontologies that become unwieldy monoliths. The fundamental gap is the absence of mathematical foundations for structure-preserving transformations across heterogeneous building data. Here we show that category theory provides these foundations, enabling systematic data integration with $O(n)$ specification complexity for $n$ ontologies. We formalize building ontologies as first-order theories and demonstrate two proof-of-concept implementations in Categorical Query Language (CQL): 1) generating BRICK models from IFC design data at commissioning, and 2) three-way integration of IFC, BRICK, and RealEstateCore where only two explicit mappings yield the third automatically through categorical composition. Our correct-by-construction approach treats property sets as first-class schema entities and provides automated bidirectional migrations, and enables cross-ontology queries. These results establish feasibility of categorical methods for building data integration and suggest a path toward an app ecosystem for buildings, where mathematical foundations enable reliable component integration analogous to smartphone platforms. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_16663 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | A Categorical Approach to Semantic Interoperability across Building Lifecycle Nagy, Zoltan Wisnesky, Ryan Carlson, Kevin Subrahmanian, Eswaran Zardini, Gioele Databases Systems and Control Buildings generate heterogeneous data across their lifecycle, yet integrating these data remains a critical unsolved challenge. Despite three decades of standardization efforts, over 40 metadata schemas now span the building lifecycle, with fragmentation accelerating rather than resolving. Current approaches rely on point-to-point mappings that scale quadratically with the number of schemas, or universal ontologies that become unwieldy monoliths. The fundamental gap is the absence of mathematical foundations for structure-preserving transformations across heterogeneous building data. Here we show that category theory provides these foundations, enabling systematic data integration with $O(n)$ specification complexity for $n$ ontologies. We formalize building ontologies as first-order theories and demonstrate two proof-of-concept implementations in Categorical Query Language (CQL): 1) generating BRICK models from IFC design data at commissioning, and 2) three-way integration of IFC, BRICK, and RealEstateCore where only two explicit mappings yield the third automatically through categorical composition. Our correct-by-construction approach treats property sets as first-class schema entities and provides automated bidirectional migrations, and enables cross-ontology queries. These results establish feasibility of categorical methods for building data integration and suggest a path toward an app ecosystem for buildings, where mathematical foundations enable reliable component integration analogous to smartphone platforms. |
| title | A Categorical Approach to Semantic Interoperability across Building Lifecycle |
| topic | Databases Systems and Control |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.16663 |