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Building on IFC, the ifcOWL ontology was developed in order to facilitate representation of building data in a consistent fashion across the Web by using the Web Ontology Language (OWL). This study presents a critical analysis of the ifcOWL ontology and of the associated interoperability issues. It shows how these issues can be resolved by using Basic Formal Ontology (ISO\/IEC 21838-2) as top-level architecture. A set of competency questions is used as the basis for comparison of the original ifcOWL with the enhanced ontology, and the latter is used to align with a second ontology\u00a0\u2013 the ontology for building intelligent environments (DOGONT)\u00a0\u2013 in order to demonstrate the added value derived from BFO by showing how querying the enhanced ifcOWL yields useful additional information.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3233\/ao-210254","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,10,29]],"date-time":"2021-10-29T11:35:14Z","timestamp":1635507314000},"page":"453-479","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":8,"title":["BFO-based ontology enhancement to promote interoperability in BIM"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"16","author":[{"given":"Justine Flore","family":"Tchouanguem","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Universit\u00e9 F\u00e9d\u00e9rale de Toulouse Midi-Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es, INP-ENIT, Tarbes, France"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Mohamed Hedi","family":"Karray","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Universit\u00e9 F\u00e9d\u00e9rale de Toulouse Midi-Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es, INP-ENIT, Tarbes, France"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Bernard Kamsu","family":"Foguem","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Universit\u00e9 F\u00e9d\u00e9rale de Toulouse Midi-Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es, INP-ENIT, Tarbes, France"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Camille","family":"Magniont","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"LMDC, Universit\u00e9 de Toulouse, INSA, UPS, France"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"F. 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