Parametric thinking is the influence of engaging in a thinking process that links, relates and outputs calculated actions to generate solutions to problems, rather than simply seeking them. [1] It has its origins in the design fields of urban design, architectural design, interior design, industrial and furniture design. The process is associated with parametricism, a style within contemporary avant-garde architecture, promoted as a successor to post-modern architecture and modern architecture.
Parametric thinking emerged as a theory-driven design education, project and delivery movement in the early 2010s, with its earliest practitioners harnessing and adapting the then new parametric design software and other advanced computational processes that had been introduced within architecture and related design fields. In the architecture education context in 2011, professors of the schools of architecture David Karle and Brian Kelly of University of Nebraska published advocacy for a paradigm shift in design education.
Karle and Kelly also highlighted that "digital tools are currently being used in design schools across the country. This paradigm in both education and practice of architecture is continually changing the profession, from the way in which design is conceived, represented, documented, and fabricated. Parametric design can be defined as a series of questions to establish the variables of a design and a computational definition that can be used to facilitate a variety of solutions. Parametric thinking is a way of relating tangible and intangible systems into a design proposal removed from digital tool specificity and establishes relationships between properties within a system. It asks architects to start with the design parameters and not preconceived or predetermined design solutions." [2]
Parametric thinking in the design process context of best practice as defined by designer/technologist Chris Swartout of M Moser Associates is "a pedagogic approach that combines design and generative solution delivery through reliance on a multidisciplinary team's knowledge expertise at the outset of the project. This leads to increased productivity, achieving the desired outcome that balances all the interests of design, schedule, cost, aesthetics and functionality, while not predetermining a solution. This approach enhances design output and reduces abortive work." [1]
Farshid Moussavi, professor in practice at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, has argued that parametric thinking at some level has always existed in architecture as a discipline because "great architecture has been aware of its societal role, and has consequently been informed by multivalent parameters." [3] [4]
A design is a concept of either an object, a process, or a system that is specific and, in most cases, detailed. Design refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, though it is sometimes used to refer to the nature of something. The verb to design expresses the process of developing a design. In some cases, the direct construction of an object without an explicit prior plan may also be considered to be a design. The design usually has to satisfy certain goals and constraints; may take into account aesthetic, functional, economic, or socio-political considerations; and is expected to interact with a certain environment. Typical examples of designs include architectural and engineering drawings, circuit diagrams, sewing patterns and less tangible artefacts such as business process models.
A cognitive model is an approximation of one or more cognitive processes in humans or other animals for the purposes of comprehension and prediction. There are many types of cognitive models, and they can range from box-and-arrow diagrams to a set of equations to software programs that interact with the same tools that humans use to complete tasks. In terms of information processing, cognitive modeling is modeling of human perception, reasoning, memory and action.
Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is a collection of best-practices for the development of new products and processes. It is sometimes deployed as an engineering design process or business process management method. DFSS originated at General Electric to build on the success they had with traditional Six Sigma; but instead of process improvement, DFSS was made to target new product development. It is used in many industries, like finance, marketing, basic engineering, process industries, waste management, and electronics. It is based on the use of statistical tools like linear regression and enables empirical research similar to that performed in other fields, such as social science. While the tools and order used in Six Sigma require a process to be in place and functioning, DFSS has the objective of determining the needs of customers and the business, and driving those needs into the product solution so created. It is used for product or process design in contrast with process improvement. Measurement is the most important part of most Six Sigma or DFSS tools, but whereas in Six Sigma measurements are made from an existing process, DFSS focuses on gaining a deep insight into customer needs and using these to inform every design decision and trade-off.
The concept of design paradigms derives from the rather ambiguous idea of paradigm originating in the sociology of science, which carries at least two main meanings:
Farshid Moussavi is an Iranian-born British architect, educator, and author. She is the founder of Farshid Moussavi Architecture (FMA) and a Professor in Practice of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. The work of her London-based practice, FMA, is celebrated for projects that integrate an inventive approach to space and materials and a strong social awareness, whether they be a cultural centre such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland or a community centre such as the Ismaili Center Houston, a social housing project in Montpellier, or an elementary school in Saclay, both in France. Prior to foudning FMA, she was co-founder of the London-based Foreign Office Architects or FOA (1993-2011), recognised as one of the world's most creative design firms, integrating architecture, urban design, and landscape architecture in a wide range of projects internationally. Moussavi was elected a Royal Academician in 2015, and subsequently, Professor of Architecture at the RA Schools in 2017. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours for Services to Architecture. In 2022 she was selected as one of the London Mayor's 42 Design Advocates to support his vision for 'Good Growth'.
Design methods are procedures, techniques, aids, or tools for designing. They offer a number of different kinds of activities that a designer might use within an overall design process. Conventional procedures of design, such as drawing, can be regarded as design methods, but since the 1950s new procedures have been developed that are more usually grouped together under the name of "design methods". What design methods have in common is that they "are attempts to make public the hitherto private thinking of designers; to externalise the design process".
Design thinking refers to the set of cognitive, strategic and practical procedures used by designers in the process of designing, and to the body of knowledge that has been developed about how people reason when engaging with design problems.
Metadesign is an emerging conceptual framework aimed at defining and creating social, economic and technical infrastructures in which new forms of collaborative design can take place. It consists of a series of practical design-related tools for achieving this.
Regenerative design is an approach to designing systems or solutions that aims to work with or mimic natural ecosystem processes for returning energy from less usable to more usable forms. Regenerative design uses whole systems thinking to create resilient and equitable systems that integrate the needs of society with the integrity of nature. Regenerative design is an active topic of discussion in engineering, landscape design, food systems, and community development.
Foreign Office Architects, FOA, was an architectural design studio headed by former husband and wife team Farshid Moussavi and Alejandro Zaera-Polo. The London-based studio, which was established in 1993, specialised in architectural design, master planning and interior design services for both public and private sector clients. Following the end of the couple's marriage, the winding up of the studio's activities was announced in December 2009. The establishment of two new practices, FMA and London/Barcelona based AZPA Limited followed in 2011.
A view model or viewpoints framework in systems engineering, software engineering, and enterprise engineering is a framework which defines a coherent set of views to be used in the construction of a system architecture, software architecture, or enterprise architecture. A view is a representation of the whole system from the perspective of a related set of concerns.
Generative design is an iterative design process that generates outputs that meet specified constraints to varying degrees. In a second phase, designers can then provide feedback to the generator that explores the feasible region by selecting preferred outputs or changing input parameters for future iterations. Either or both phases can be done by humans or software. One method is to use a generative adversarial network, which is a pair of neural networks. The first generates a trial output. The second provides feedback for the next iteration.
MULTICUBE is a Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) project aimed to define innovative methods for the design optimization of computer architectures for the embedded system domain.
Rivka Oxman is an Israeli architect, researcher, and professor at the Technion Institute in Haifa. Her research interests are related to design and computation, including digital architecture and methods, and exploring their contribution to the emergence of new paradigms of architectural design and practice.
Open-source architecture is an emerging paradigm that advocates new procedures in imagination and formation of virtual and real spaces within a universal infrastructure. Drawing from references as diverse as open-source culture, modular design, avant-garde architectural, science fiction, language theory, and neuro-surgery, it adopts an inclusive approach as per spatial design towards a collaborative use of design and design tools by professionals and ordinary citizen users. The umbrella term citizen-centered design harnesses the notion of open-source architecture, which in itself involves the non-building architecture of computer networks, and goes beyond it to the movement that encompass the building design professions, as a whole.
Systems-oriented design (SOD) uses system thinking in order to capture the complexity of systems addressed in design practice. The main mission of SOD is to build the designers' own interpretation and implementation of systems thinking. SOD aims at enabling systems thinking to fully benefit from design thinking and practice and design thinking and practice to fully benefit from systems thinking. SOD addresses design for human activity systems and can be applied to any kind of design problem ranging from product design and interaction design through architecture to decision-making processes and policy design.
Post-contemporary (PoCo) is a forward-looking aesthetic philosophy distinguished by a re-constructive, global, human ethos which posits that the aesthetic experience is universal to humanity, and that this experience can inspire understanding and transformation. It has developed in tandem with new theories of emergence in complexity science, as well as advances in biosemiotics. In art historical terms, "modern" and "contemporary" arts are limited to their era and are defined by stylistic and philosophical parameters - chief among them, a critique of the classical European tradition and constructive philosophy, and secondly, the contemporary ethos is characterized by an emphasis on transient or exclusively contemporary issues which reflect the zeitgeist.
Parametric design is a design method in which features, such as building elements and engineering components, are shaped based on algorithmic processes rather than direct manipulation. In this approach, parameters and rules establish the relationship between design intent and design response. The term parametric refers to the input parameters that are fed into the algorithms.
Parametricism is a style within contemporary avant-garde architecture, promoted as a successor to Modern and Postmodern architecture. The term was coined in 2008 by Patrik Schumacher, an architectural partner of Zaha Hadid (1950–2016). Parametricism has its origin in parametric design, which is based on the constraints in a parametric equation. Parametricism relies on programs, algorithms, and computers to manipulate equations for design purposes.
ARCADIA is a system and software architecture engineering method based on architecture-centric and model-driven engineering activities.