4.7.1.2 Spatial Containment

The Spatial Containment concept defines the relationship of physical elements, such as building elements, distribution elements, or furnishing elements as being contained within a spatial structure element.

Any subtype of IfcElement may participate in two different containment relationships. The first (and in most implementation scenarios mandatory) relationship is the hierachical spatial containment, the second (optional) relationship is the aggregation within an element assembly.

• The subtypes of IfcElement are placed within the project spatial hierarchy using the objectified relationship IfcRelContainedInSpatialStructure, refering to it by its inverse attribute SELF\IfcElement.ContainedInStructure. Subtypes of IfcSpatialElement are valid spatial containers.
• The subtypes of IfcElement may be aggregated into an element assembly using the objectified relationship IfcRelAggregates, refering to it by its inverse attribute SELF\IfcObjectDefinition.Decomposes. Any subtype of IfcElement can be an element assembly, with IfcElementAssembly as a special focus subtype. In this case it should not be additionally contained in the project spatial hierarchy, i.e. SELF\IfcElement.ContainedInStructure should be NIL.

Figure 52 illustrates an instance diagram.

Figure 52 — Spatial Containment

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