Design Theory-I

Lecture slides
Chapter-4
Khwopa Engineering College
Introduction to Design Thinking
• What is design?
– Design is the creation of a plan or convention for the
construction of an object, system or measurable human
interaction 
– Design is the intend to do something to achieve something
concrete
– An architectural design is the intention to do some activities
which produces a concrete object at the end>> a building, a
park, a city etc.
 Introduction to Design Thinking

• “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it
works”. Steve Jobs
• Everything is designed.

• What is designing then?

– It is a process or activity
Introduction to Design Thinking
• What is thinking?
– It is the mental activity….hard to define….performed by the
brain which helped humans to concur the world
– Could you attain the state of nil thinking?
• In eastern books and epics, it has been stated that nil
thinking could be attained>> Hrishi/sages/saints!!
• In ordinary condition, it is believed that Human being
cannot stay in the state of nil thinking as they have got
the advanced type of brain
 Introduction to design thinking

• A man has the capacity to think crime and love at the same time.
• One can guess what s/he must be thinking but can not tell what
exactly s/he is thinking….
• We all think at every moment of life.

 Whenever trying to track how one thinks, the following process

may be applicable.
1. The special thing you are asked to think appears distant at first
instant
2. as you go deeper and closer it gradually appears to be clear
and meaningful
 Introduction to design thinking
 Clarity in thinking about the object >> after a deep penetration
into it.
 The object at a moment appears to be dominating and other
elements came during thinking lie on the background.
 Design thinking is an approach of solving design problems by
understanding users’ need and developing insights to solve those
needs.
 Introduction to design thinking
• Thinking about the pipal tree, first the physical appearance of the
tree appears. Then gradually the name and its societal significance
emerges and finally its cultural value is thought about.
 Introduction to design thinking
• thinking about modern architecture in Nepal, one remembers few
world-class architects, and finally L.I.Kahn and Kenzo Tanga. And
when thinking about Tanga, the Master Plan of Lumbini appears on
the foreground.
• All remaining things those came during thinking merge with the
background.
• The final outcome appears to be definite, concrete and distinct at
last.
 Introduction to design thinking
• When we think of an object, it appears to be distant. Only after
thinking a lot about the object it appears to be nearer.
• The physical form could characterize any object, which is far. While
reaching nearer to the object, its social and cultural aspects are felt.
 Architectural Design Thinking

 all sorts of activities involve thinking and architectural designing

also cannot remain aloof, because designing is an activity.

 Design Thinking is a design methodology that provides a solution-

based approach to solving problems

 It’s extremely useful in tackling complex problems that are ill-

defined or unknown, by understanding the human needs involved,
by re-framing the problem in human-centric ways.

 “Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that

draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people,
the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business
success.”
 Architectural Design Thinking

 Example >>designing a residential building,

 the first thing that pervades the mind is an image of a residential
building.
 Even the first thing that comes in mind is its physical form and
then only an architect starts to think about its constituents taking
references of his/her beloved home.
 The constituents try to represent the social aspect or commodity
of the particular building.
 Finally, cultural aspect emerges into the thinking process.
 Architectural design thinking
• Physically an architect starts thinking a residence, Followings
feature dominant:
– The structure>> whether load bearing or framed ?
– the materials to be used>> which are very commonly and
locally available.
– the height of the building (a residence merely rises above third
floor).
– human proportion or Anthropometrics
 Architectural design thinking
• Socially, following features dominate the design thinking of an
architect:
– a portico in front of main entrance to focus the entry.
– public as well as semi-public spaces (like kitchen, dinning, living,
guest bed room, common toilet etc) and private spaces (like
bedrooms, puja room, family room, personal library etc) at
different level.
 Architectural design thinking
 Culturally, when an architect starts thinking a residence,
Followings are the dominant features:
 A tulsi Math for a Hindu residence which is not found in other
religious culture as example.
 a proper place of a puja room with respect to other rooms
inside residence>> the placements of components in an order
like in front, nearby, far away, in the sides etc.
 the building type from a distance that is how one can easily say
whether the object is school or a stable or even a residence.
 Key elements of Design thiking
• People centered
• Highly creative
• Hands-on
• Iterative
• People Centered
– What people, users, customers, consumers, needs or want to do.
– Need the ability to understand and share the feelings of others

• Highly creative
– Design thinking stimulates to look at the situations differently and
come up with new solutions that go beyond and improve existing
alternatives.
– Needs the ability to look at all the different aspects of a problem.
• Hands on
– Stop discussing, start working.
– Make ideas tangible.
– Prototyping is thinking with your hands.
– Test your hypothesis.
– Failure is a part of the process which is necessary in order to succeed.
– Experiments with trial and errors are key
• Iterative
– The road to success doesn’t follow a straight line.
– The more you are able to loop through “understand>create>learn”
cycle, the higher chance for good results.
 Case studies in Design thinking
• Any architectural object is dominated by one of three aspects:
physical, social or cultural.
• Case study helps an architect to find out the domination of a
particular aspect.
– Example>>Lotus temple>> the first thing that come in our mind
is its form which is quite symbolic imitating a form of a lotus.
• HERE the physical aspect dominates the design.
 Case studies in Design thinking
– If the example is taken of Dasarath Stadium, where social aspect
is dominating. The whole agenda of the design is to create a
comfortable space for both players and spectators. The word
comfort, as we know, deals with social aspect. Hence it could be
said that social aspect is dominating in stadium design.
 Case studies in design thinking
– example of Nuwakot or Basantapur Durbar >> culturally
dominating design. Even though the palaces in Newari
architecture were the product of Malla Period, King Prithibi
Narayan Shah tried to continue the culture of designing palaces
(durbars) in Newari architecture, as it was a sort of culture to do
so.
– It is matter of argument about their physical and Social aspects
(they remain on the background), but cultural aspect could be
clearly felt.
 Case studies in design thinking
• It is not logical to say that only one aspect is sufficient enough to
deal with architectural design because the combination of all three
aspects composes Architecture. It is only domination of one of
those aspects in a particular design that is understood by a case
study.
Introduction to Design Method
• The term Method>> borrowed from the Greek language
meaning of which is pursuit of knowledge and mode of
investigation (Meta= sharing, odous= way).
• converted in Latin as methodologia, meaning the science or
study of methods.
• Design involves different steps helpful to find out the proper
solution as it is problem-solving act.
• To design is to create something with the help of several
references taken and formulation them in an appropriate order.
 Introduction to Design Method
• Design process is not simple as all the steps involved in entire
procedure merge into background and the final out put come up as
an optimum and best possible solution.

• There are two basic points of design: point of departure and point
of destination.
– Point of departure>> the point from which one starts designing
– Point of destination>> the point where the design is completed
 Introduction to Design Method
• The theoreticians and the designers in the beginning considered
Designing unanswerable,

• gradually the paradigm shifted>>from design as inborn and innate

to be teachable

• The concept of Robert Venturi, an American architect>> it is not

good to see how sausages are prepared in the factory, similar is
the case with designing as it is mental activity.
 Introduction to Design Method
• People seeking reasons for every activity came to a point for finding
out process of designing or design process.

• Basically there is two design processes:

 Old design process
 New design process.
 Old design process
• Several theoreticians and designers accepted the existence of
design process.

• The ideas advocated by ULM school of design considered as pioneer

in thinking of design process, Asimov and J.C. Jones are said to be
major contributors in it.

• Manchester Method and London conference in design also have a

great influence in old design process.
 Old design process
• ULM school of Design:
– It is said that the thinking about design started basically from
this school in the involvement of a lecturer, Hans Gugelot, who
developed several steps of design.
– Major steps of design according to this school were:
• A: information stage
• B: research stage
• C: Design
• D: Decision stage
• E: Calculation stage
• F: Model Making stage
 Old design process
• ULM school of design

1
• Information stage ( gather information)

2
• Research stage ( data analysis)

3
• Design( start working on the data and ideas)

4
• Decision stage ( decide which of the options to take till the end)

5
• Calculation stage ( estimation and other calculations)

6
• Model making stage( prepare a model of the design)
 Asimov’s contribution

Detailed design
• Redesign
• Analysis and
redesign
• Product test
program
• Experimental
construction
• Preparation of
assembly Planning and Planning for
Pre-feasibility Planning for
Feasibility stage • Drawings production retirement of Product
stage distribution
• Detailed design of process product
parts
• Overall design of
components
• Preparation for
final design
 Asimov’s contribution
• Later more generalized version of Asimov was adopted in
Architectural Design.

Analysis
 Old design process
• London Conference on Design
– William Page came out with an idea of design method consisting
of a composition of Analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

Design= Analysis+ Synthesis+ Evaluation

 Old design process
• London Conference on Design
– Nevertheless, design is never a linear activity rather it is
performed in hit and trial basis, formula of Page was widely
followed and was considered to be more relevant method to
understand design.
– Several other theoreticians proposed different ideas but finally
they were basically echo of Page formula hanging around the
concepts of analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
 Old Design Method
• Jones Method of Design
– In London conference on design, J.C. Jones raised an appropriate
issue related to the conflict between creative thought and
logical analysis.
– He introduced a fact that design involves creativity but it should
be logical too. He, for the case, divided these two crucial
aspects in two stages.
 Old Design Method
– Two stages of Jones Method of Design
• The first stage: FREE MIND that will help the designer to be
involved in generating creative ideas, without being inhibited
by practical limitations.
• The second stage: CREATIVE IDEA WITH STRONG LOGIC
BEHIND>> logic should be developed to make presence of
creative idea to be logical.
– This second stage should be evolved under Page
formula.
 Old Design Method
• The method of Denis Thornley: Manchester Method
– Practice is very different from theory that what is taught in
architecture school, that is why practicum is offered to the
students of architecture in their course.
– The first ever man to think about the difference in theory and
practice of architecture was Dennis Thornley who came to teach
after a long period of practice.
 Old Design Method
• The method of Denis Thornley: Manchester Method
– After realizing the fact that an architect should just not only
understand the theory rather s/he should be perfect in practice
too, he joined University of Manchester as a professor.
– Mr. Thornley not only went through theory of architecture
(sometimes called as words of architecture) rather tried to
formulate a new theory observing carefully what an architect
does during designing.
 Old Design Method
• The method of Denis Thornley: Manchester Method
– The formula indeed was in the form of a scheme diagram, which
is as follows:

A • Accumulation of data

B • Isolation of general concept of form

C • The development of the form in the final sche

me
D • The presentation of final scheme

E • The PRODUCT
 Old Design Method
• The method of Denis Thornley: Manchester Method
– Isolation of general concept of form
• The essential purpose of building
• The relationship between building with the individual
• The relationship of the building and its occupants to the
surrounding social and commercial pattern
• The relationship of building to its physical surrounding
• Economics
• Preliminary considerations of spatial and formal organization
• Preliminary concept of structural organization
• The establishment of an appropriate form or generalized concept
 Old Design Method
– The method of Denis Thornley: Manchester Method
• The development of the form in the final scheme
– Detailed consideration of spatial and formal organization
– Detailed consideration of structure
– The development of architectural values

• This method developed by Mr. Thornley widely influenced the British

design process, that’s why the
Royal institute of British architects devised a design method taking it as a
base.
 New Design method

• With arrival of higher mathematics, computer aided design (CAD)

has been introduced in design method
• Several influences felt in design process by the advent of
technology>> all they fall under new design method.
 New Design Method
• Method of Christopher Alexander
• Christopher Alexander tried to formulate design within a bold
philosophical concept of fit and context.
– In his view, architecture is only successful when it represents
the context. That is, in his own words design should be fit in the
context.
 New Design Method
• Method of Christopher Alexander
• Similarly, successfulness of design hinges around its fitness
with the context.
• Palaces of Nuwakot, Basantapur and Bhimsen Stambha represent
their own context. Similarly, Sydney Opera, Taj Mahal, Millennium
Dome also are representing their own context in a fit manner and
hence are considered as successful designs.
 Ultimate Course of Design Process

• Several interpretations and solutions of design process emerged in

modern context the ultimate course of design process consists
three stages>> analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
– Whenever designing, one start analyzing the object to find out
the components, then starts to synthesize the outcomes of
analysis. Then only one evaluates whether the final output is
correct and according to the desire or not. If it not so, again the
process repeats.