design space exploration (DSE)

Intuition plays a large part in architecture, because we don't have an IBM machine big enough to take all the factors into consideration. So, you depend on intuition. But, boy! Wherever you can apply straight thinking or IBM machine methods or things like that, you absolutely have to do it.

An over aching computational method; in essence an incremental specification of design logic in a computational form that eventually yields with a design space open for exploration of alternatives and their variations.

Of the many potentialities afforded by the computer, one of the most significant is its capacity to operate as a search engine. If, then, we think through the logic of the search in the context of ‘design’, what such an approach suggests is that if all possible solutions already exist, it is simply a question of defining a set of constraints and conducting a search, and then selecting one of the many outcomes. The potential implications of this are far reaching. Not only does it challenge the traditional notion of the ‘genius’ of the architect/designer and the originality of the work of art, but it also suggests that if there is still any creativity in the ‘design’ process, it should lie, firstly, in defining the constraints that generate the range of possible solutions to a problem, and, secondly, in developing an effective method of filtering or evaluating them

[…] if I can picture possible solutions, I have a much better chance of finding the right one.