• ‘Design’ is both a noun and a verb and can refer

either to the end product or to the process.

• Recently the word ‘designer’ has even become
an adjective rather than a noun.
• On the one hand this can be seen to trivialise
design to the status of mere fashion.
• It implies that not all design is equally valuable
and that perhaps the work of some designers is
regarded as more important.
• To some extent we can see design as a generic
activity, and yet there appear to be real
differences between the end products created
by designers in various domains.
• A structural engineer may describe the
process of calculating the dimensions of a
beam in a building as design. In truth such a
process is almost entirely mechanical.
• However, a fashion designer creating a new
collection might be slightly puzzled by the
engineer’s use of the word ‘design’. The
engineer’s process seems to us to be relatively
precise, systematic and even mechanical,
whereas fashion design seems more imaginative,
unpredictable and spontaneous.
• The engineer knows more or less what is
required from the outset.
• The fashion designer’s knowledge of what is
required is likely to be much vaguer.
• Actually both these descriptions are to some
extent caricatures since good engineering
requires considerable imagination and can often
be unpredictable in its outcome, and good
fashion is unlikely to be achieved without
considerable technical knowledge.
• Many forms of design then, deal with both
precise and vague ideas, call for systematic and
chaotic thinking, need both imaginative thought
and mechanical calculation.
• The three-dimensional and environmental design
fields of architecture, interior design, product and
industrial design, urban and landscape design, all
require the designer to produce beautiful and
also practically useful and well functioning end
products.
• In most cases realising designs in these fields is
likely to require very considerable technical
knowledge and expertise, as well as being visually
imaginative and ability to design.
• Designers in these fields generate objects or
places which may have a major impact on the
quality of life of many people.
• Mistakes can seriously inconvenience, may
well be expensive and can even be dangerous.
• On the other hand, very good design can
approach the power of art and music to lift
the spirit and enrich our lives.
 A paradox in design.
• Design is now clearly a highly professional activity for
some people, and the very best designers are greatly
valued and we admire what they do enormously.
• Yet design is also an everyday activity that we all do.
• All everyday domestic jobs can be seen as design tasks
or at least design-like tasks.
• When we are at work we are still designing by planning
our time, arranging the desktops of our computers,
arranging rooms for meetings, and so we could go on.
We may not aggrandise these humble tasks with the
word ‘design’, but they share many of the
characteristics of professional design tasks.
• However, that these tasks vary in a number of
ways that begin to give us some clues about the
nature of designing.
• Some of these tasks are really a matter of
selection and combination of predetermined
items. In some cases we might also create these
items.
• Occasionally we might create something so new
and special that others may wish to copy what we
have done.
• Designers also design for other people rather
than just themselves.
• They have to learn to understand problems
that other people may find it hard to describe
and create good solutions for them.
• Such work requires more than just a
‘feeling’for materials, forms, shapes or
colours; it requires a wide range of skills.
• Many designers dabble in fields other than those in
which they were trained, such as the famous architect
Mies van der Rohe who designed a chair for his
German Pavilion at the Barcelona International
Exhibition of 1929, which to this day appears in the
lobbies of banks and hotels all over the world.
• Very few designers are actually trained in more than
one field such as the highly acclaimed
architect/engineer Santiago Calatrava.
• Some designers are even difficult to classify such as
Philippe Starck who designs buildings, interiors,
furniture and household items.
• Classifying design by its end product seems to
be rather putting the cart before the horse, for
the solution is something which is formed by
the design process and has not existed in
advance of it.
• The cautionary tale of the scientist, the engineer, the architect and
the church tower illustrates this phenomenon. These three were
standing outside the church arguing about the height of the tower
when a local shopkeeper who was passing by suggested a
competition. He was very proud of a new barometer which he now
stocked in his shop and in order to advertise it he offered a prize to
the one who could most accurately discover the height of the tower
using one of his barometers. The scientist carefully measured the
barometric pressure at the foot of the tower and again at the top,
and from the difference he calculated the height. The engineer,
scorning this technique, climbed to the top, dropped the barometer
and timed the period of its fall. However, it was the architect who,
to the surprise of all, was the most accurate. He simply went inside
the church and offered the barometer to the verger in exchange for
allowing him to examine the original drawings of the church!
 Design is a skill
• Design is a highly complex and sophisticated skill.
It is not a mystical ability given only to those with
recondite powers but a skill which, for many,
must be learnt and practised rather like the
playing of a sport or a musical instrument.
• Skills must be acquired initially by attention to
detail. It is in the very nature of highly developed
skills that we can perform them unconsciously.
• Beginners however must first analyse and
practise all the elements of their skill.
• While we are used to the idea that physical skills
like riding a bicycle, swimming and playing a
musical instrument must be learned and
practised, we are less ready to recognise that
thinking might need similar attention.
• More recently there have been many writers who
have exhorted their readers to practise this skill
of thinking. One of the most notable, Edward de
Bono (1968) summarises the message of such
writers:
“On the whole, it must be more important to be skilful in
thinking than to be stuffed with facts.”
• Design process encourages experimentation
and liberates the designer’s creative
imagination in a quite revolutionary way.
• One definition of Design: “The optimum
solution to the sum of the true needs of a
particular set of circumstances.”
• ‘To initiate change’
• ‘The performing of a very complicated act of
faith.’
 Steps in Design Process
• RIBA Architectural Practice ROUTE MAPS OF THE DESIGN PROCESS and
Management Handbook (1965).
• Two academics, Tom Markus (1969b) and Tom Maver (1970) produced
rather more elaborate maps of the architectural design process
• The problem for the Markus/ Maver map, then, is just what constitutes
‘outline’ and what is meant by ‘detail’. Experience suggests that this not
only varies between designers but may well vary from project to project.
What might seem a fundamental early decision on one project may seem
a matter of detail which could be left to the end on another.
• it may take quite a lot of effort before a designer is
really aware just how difficult a problem is.
• First impressions are rarely very reliable in these
matters.
• Design students seem to be incorrigibly optimistic in
their estimation of the difficulty of problems and the
time needed to arrive at acceptable solutions. As a
result students often fail to get down to the level of
detail required of them by their tutors.
• It is all too easy to look superficially at a new design
problem and, failing to see any great difficulty, imagine
that there is no real urgency.
• One of the essential characteristics of design problems then is that they
are often not apparent but must be found.
• In fact, the initial expression of design problems may often be quite
misleading. If design problems are characteristically unclearly stated, then
it is also true that designers seem never to be satisfied with the problem
as presented.
• For example:
When faced with the task of designing a new knob for a client’s office
door, perhaps ‘we ought to ask ourselves whether a doorknob is the best
way of opening and closing a door’.
Soon the designer is questioning whether the office really needs a door, or
should even have four walls and so on.
Like the after-image in your eye after looking at a bright light, the problem
seems to follow your gaze.
• A student who was asked to design a new central library
building decided that he needed to study the various methods
of loaning and storing books. Only to discover at the next
tutorial that his work now looked more as if he was preparing
for a degree in librarianship than one in architecture. This trail
of regression is to a certain extent encouraged by some of the
maps of the design process.
• This behaviour is only one logical outcome in practice of the
notion that analysis precedes synthesis and data collection
precedes analysis.
• Design problems do not have natural or
obvious boundaries but, rather, seem to be
organised roughly hierarchically.
• It is rarely possible to discern precisely how far
the stated problem one should begin and how
far below one should call a halt.
• Creatively uncovering the range of the
problem is one of the designer’s most
important skills.
• Design problems are often both multi-
dimensional and highly interactive.
• Very rarely does any part of a designed thing
serve only one purpose.
• The American architect Philip Johnson is reported
to have observed that some people find chairs
beautiful to look at because they are comfortable
to sit in, while others find chairs comfortable to
sit in because they are beautiful to look at.
Sub-optimising
Good design is usually an integrated response to a whole series
of issues.

If there was one single characteristic which could be used to

identify good designers it is the ability to integrate and
combine.
Too many designers miss the fact that the new issues which legitimately
demand new forms are there, if the pattern of the problems could only be
seen as it is and not as the bromide image (of a previous solution)
conveniently at hand in the catalogue or magazine around the corner.
Every problem has a structure of its own. Good design depends upon
the designer’s ability to act according to this structure and not to run
arbitrarily counter to it.
Chermayeff and Alexander (1963)
 Measuring the success of design
There’s no such thing as a bad Picasso, but some are less good than others.
Pablo Picasso, Come to Judgement
Design education all over the world is largely based on the studio where
students learn by tackling problems rather than acquiring theory and then
applying it.

Thus students are expected to strive towards solutions which will be

assessed, rather than showing a development in their methodology. Often,
too, the inevitable ‘crit’ which ceremoniously concludes the studio project
tends to focus on retrospective condemnation of elements of the end
product rather than encouragement to develop better ways of working
(Anthony 1991).
A study of design education in schools (Laxton 1969), concluded that students
cannot expect to be truly creative without a reservoir of experience. Laxton
developed a rather elegant model of design learning using the metaphor of a
hydroelectric plant

1. The ability to initiate or express ideas that is dependent on having a

reservoir of knowledge from which to draw these ideas.
2. The ability to evaluate and discriminate between ideas.
3. The transformation or interpretative skill is needed to translate ideas into
the appropriate and relevant context.

One of the paradoxes of creativity is

that, in order to think originally, we
must familiarize ourselves with the ideas
of others . These ideas can then form a
springboard from which the creator’s
ideas can be launched.

Design education, then, is a delicate balance

indeed between directing the student to acquire
this knowledge and experience, and yet not
mechanizing his or her thought processes to the
point of preventing the emergence of original
ideas.
 The designer does not approach each design problem afresh with a tabula
rasa, or blank mind, as is implied by a considerable amount of the literature
on design methods.
Rather, designers have their own motivations, reasons for wanting to
design, sets of beliefs, values and attitudes.

Design in general can be seen to pass through phases of relative certainty

and doubt.
Walter Gropius (1935) who was largely responsible for the creation of the Bauhaus, itself a cross-
disciplinary school of design, announced this period of confidence by claiming that ‘the ethical
necessity of the New Architecture can no longer be called in doubt’.

The great architect, James Stirling (1965)’was to reflect that as a student he ‘was left with a
deep conviction of the moral rightness of the New Architecture’.
Alberti had studied Vitruvius and published his De Re Aedificatoria. Here he
commended to Pope Nicholas V the whole idea of the Renaissance,
rejecting the authority of the medieval stonemasons and therefore, of
course, their Gothic arches! He too implied support from the ‘ultimate
authority’ by advocating the use of proportions and design principles
which he based on the human body!

In the twentieth century we find Le

Corbusier advancing his own variation on
this theme in his famous treatise The
Modulor. He proposed a proportional
system based on numbers which he
claimed could be derived from the ratios
of parts of the human body and which,
therefore, had some deep significance
and rightness.
(Le Corbusier 1951).