1. A computerized modeling system (CMS) for constructing a portable persistent model from persistent component objects and for persistently saving and recalling at least one subset of the portable constructed model, each component object including an object and its corresponding class, the system comprising: a first platform for providing system-dependent services, the first platform being one of a plurality of different platforms, each platform including an operating system and computer hardware which executes the operating system; a static kernel executing on the platform and interfaced to the operating system and the computer hardware, the kernel for providing services necessary to load and execute CMS services and to interface to the platform services; and a dynamic framework executing on the platform and interfaced to the kernel, the framework for providing a platform-independent visual interface between the CMS and a CMS user, the framework employing the services of the kernel; and a project database having a persistent store, each persistent component object in the portable persistent model being instantiated from a class within a schema and being stored in the persistent store with the schema.