TY - JOUR
T1 - Unexpected discoveries and S-invention of design requirements
T2 - Important vehicles for a design process
AU - Suwa, Masaki
AU - Gero, John
AU - Purcell, Terry
N1 - Funding Information:
This research has been funded by the Australian Research Council, Grant Number A89601894. The concepts in this paper were initially presented at the Fourth International Conference on Computational Models of Creative Design. We are grateful to Gabriela Goldschmidt for insightful comments on the first manuscript of the present paper.
PY - 2000/11
Y1 - 2000/11
N2 - Designers, during a conceptual design process, do not just synthesize solutions that satisfy initially given requirements, but also invent design issues or requirements that capture important aspects of the given problem. How do they do this? What becomes the impetus for the invention of important issues or requirements? So-called `unexpected discoveries', the acts of attending to visuo-spatial features in sketches which were not intended when they were drawn, are believed to contribute to it. The purpose of the present research is to verify this hypothesis. Analyzing the cognitive processes of a practising architect in a design session, we found that in about a half of his entire design process there were bi-directional relations between unexpected discoveries and the invention of issues or requirements. Not only did unexpected discoveries become the driving force for the invention of issues or requirements, but also the occurrence of invention, in turn, tended to cause new unexpected discoveries. This has provided empirical evidence for two anecdotal views of designing. First, designing is a situated act; designers invent design issues or requirements in a way situated in the environment in which they design. We call inventions of this sort situated-invention (S-invention). Secondly, a design process progresses in such a way that the problem-space and the solution-space co-evolve. Further, this has brought a pedagogical implication as well as an insight about an important aspect of learning by experience in design.
AB - Designers, during a conceptual design process, do not just synthesize solutions that satisfy initially given requirements, but also invent design issues or requirements that capture important aspects of the given problem. How do they do this? What becomes the impetus for the invention of important issues or requirements? So-called `unexpected discoveries', the acts of attending to visuo-spatial features in sketches which were not intended when they were drawn, are believed to contribute to it. The purpose of the present research is to verify this hypothesis. Analyzing the cognitive processes of a practising architect in a design session, we found that in about a half of his entire design process there were bi-directional relations between unexpected discoveries and the invention of issues or requirements. Not only did unexpected discoveries become the driving force for the invention of issues or requirements, but also the occurrence of invention, in turn, tended to cause new unexpected discoveries. This has provided empirical evidence for two anecdotal views of designing. First, designing is a situated act; designers invent design issues or requirements in a way situated in the environment in which they design. We call inventions of this sort situated-invention (S-invention). Secondly, a design process progresses in such a way that the problem-space and the solution-space co-evolve. Further, this has brought a pedagogical implication as well as an insight about an important aspect of learning by experience in design.
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U2 - 10.1016/S0142-694X(99)00034-4
DO - 10.1016/S0142-694X(99)00034-4
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0034322974
SN - 0142-694X
VL - 21
SP - 539
EP - 567
JO - Design Studies
JF - Design Studies
IS - 6
ER -