John S. Gero

Design prototypes: a knowledge representation schema for design

This article begins with an elaboration of models of design as a process. It then introduces and describes a knowledge representation schema for design called design prototypes. This schema supports the initiation and continuation of the act of designing. Design prototypes are shown to provide a suitable framework to distinguish routine, innovative, and creative design.

Drawings and the design process: A review of protocol studies in design and other disciplines and related research in cognitive psychology

Abstract A characteristic of the design process in all areas of design is the use of a number of different types of drawings. The different types of drawings are associated with different stages of the process with one type, the relatively unstructured and ambiguous sketch, occurring early in the process. Designers place great emphasis on the sketch often because it is thought to be associated with innovation and creativity. Because of this emphasis researchers have also begun to focus on the sketch and its role in design. The first aim of this paper is to collect together and review the results of this research and to relate it to similar research that has looked at the role of drawings in problem solving in other disciplines. Recently, however, researchers in the design area have begun to relate their work to a number of areas of research in cognitive psychology and cognitive science. This work provides theoretical frameworks, experimental methodologies and a considerable body of research results that are of great potential importance to design research. The second aim of this paper is to review three of these areas, working memory, imagery reinterpretation and mental synthesis, and to examine their implications for design research generally but with a particular emphasis on the role of sketching in design.

An approach to the analysis of design protocols

Abstract Little research has been done on how designers actually design. Much of design research is concerned with computer-based models or is based on anecdotal evidence of the design process. This paper describes the development and application of a methodology that uses protocol studies of designers engaged in design to investigate the process of designing. A coding scheme is developed and applied to design protocols. The scheme brings structure to the unstructured data of the protocols without detracting from the richness of the data. Results are shown that illustrate the utility of this approach in gaining some insight into how designers design.

Design and other types of fixation

Abstract Design educators often comment on the difficulties that result from a premature commitment by students to a solution to a design problem. Similarly practitioners can find it difficult to move away from an idea they have developed or precedents in a field. In the psychology of problem solving this effect is called functional fixedness or fixation. It is not surprising that these effects should occur in design problem solving. However, while these types of issues have been discussed in the context of design, there has been little systematic evidence available about whether or not and under what conditions design fixation does occur. The paper reviews the results of a series of recent experiments which begin to address these issues. The results of the experiments are examined in terms of what insights they provide into the design process, what implications they have for design education and how they relate to the larger and more general area of human problem solving.

Creativity, emergence and evolution in design

Abstract This paper commences by outlining notions of creativity before examining the role of emergence in creative design. Various process models of emergence are presented; these are based on notions of additive and substitutive variables resulting in additive and substitutive schemas. Frameworks for both representation and process for a computational model of creative design are presented. The representational framework is based on design prototypes whilst the process framework is based on an evolutionary model. The computational model brings both representation and process together.

Function-behavior-structure paths and their role in analogy-based design

In many creative design processes, cross-domain knowledge is required to inspire the new design result. Thus, in knowledge-based design, how we represent the cross-domain knowledge becomes a key issue. In this paper, we present a formalism for design knowledge representation. By analyzing function representation in different design domains, from graphic design and industrial design to architectural and engineering device designs, we find that although the focus of each kind of design is different, the function representation can be generalized into a small number of categories. This formalism can be used in an explorative model of design by analogy, where designs from different design domains are sources to help produce a new design.

Modeling Creativity and Knowledge-Based Creative Design

Over the last decade research into design processes utilizing ideas and models drawn from artificial intelligence has resulted in a better understanding of design -- particularly routine design -- as a process. Indeed, most of the current research activity directly or indirectly deals only with routine design. Not surprisingly, many practicing designers state that the level of understanding represented by these models is only of mild interest because they fail to embody any ideas about creativity. This volume provides a set of chapters in the areas of modeling creativity and knowledge-based creative design that examines the potential role and form of computer-aided design which supports creativity. It aims to define the state-of-the-art of computational creativity in design as well as to identify research directions. Published at a time when the field of computational creativity in design is still immature, it should influence the directions of growth and assist the field in reaching maturity.

Computational Models of Innovative and Creative Design Processes

Abstract Computational support for designing began in the early 1960s, and has had a considerable influence. Only recently has there been the possibility of providing computational support for innovative and creative designing. This paper presents a number of computational models of creative designing; including combination, transformation, analogy, emergence, and first principles as a representative set. It describes them within a uniform framework and indicates the potential of having such models on technological change in a society where designers are the change agents of the physical world.

Modelling multiple views of design objects in a collaborative cad environment

Collaboration between designers in different disciplines is an increasingly important aspect in complex design situations, as exemplified in the AEC domain. CAD systems are essential for handling this complexity but current CAD modelling technology is directed towards the production of a single product model. In the AEC environment, many disciplines are involved, each with its own concept of the design object. Each such concept must be accommodated in any representation and this paper argues that a single model approach is inadequate. The ideas in this paper are based upon an assumption that different concepts of an object are based on different functional contexts. Thus the representation of the functional properties of design objects is the underlying basis for the formation of different concepts.

Space layout planning using an evolutionary approach

Abstract This paper describes a design method based on constructing a genetic/evolutionary-design model whose idea is borrowed from natural genetics. Here, two major issues from the modelling involve how to represent design knowledge for the evolutionary design model and the usefulness of the model for design problems. For the representation of design knowledge in the model, a schema concept is introduced. The utility of the model is based on its computational efficiency and its capability of producing satisfactory solutions for the given set of problem requirements. The design problem used to demonstrate the approach is a large office layout planning problem with its associated topological and geometrical arrangements of space elements. An example drawn from the literature is used.