The Design Process | Mind Map

Goals Articulation

Designer, client, stakeholders: Articulate your goals.

Methods:

Gaia U 4 questions

What is going well today?

What is challenging?

What are the long-term goals and visions?

What is the next achievable step?

Visioning and backcasting

Story-telling

HolisticGoal Setting (HMI)

Generating Desired Conditions

Active Voice

Present Tense

Makes the goals very real. Resonance. State desired conditions as a mantra to manifest the future.

Identify desired elements of the design

Carefully define the problem, question or intention.

Differentiate and relate your values, goals, and criteria

Observation, Analysis, Assessment

Unguided observation. Be present and sensing. Suspend analysis/assessment. Be and intuit.

Guided observation and data collection

Surveying, basemapping

Topography, sectors, aspect

Soils, water

Microclimates

Regulations, boundaries (legal)

Broader ecosocial context of situation

Existing resources (human, energy, financial, ecological, social)

Current patterns of activity

Interview the client (see goals articulation).

Analysis: Break it down.

Create distinct 'pieces/collections' of data from the mass generated

Cluster into themed maps.

Overlay themed maps and watch patterns emerge.

Ian McHarg, Design with Nature

Assessment: Appraise/evaluate the observations/data in light of the articulated goals.

Design Concept Development

Wait. Make sure Goals Articulation and Observation, Analysis and Assessment are sufficiently complete. Preparation pays off.

Exist in the dynamic tension (Fritz) and the 'space of not knowing' (Jacke). Consider the two states (now and goals realized).

Suspend the voice of judgement, and generate, ideate, dream. Rapid prototype designs. More output!

What is the nucleus of the design? Where is the profound simplicity?

Design Concept: Central organizing idea, and a context-specific vision.

Integrates entire design and guides later design.

Design

Schematic Design (from big patterns)

Expand concept to sketchy but specific level.

Schematic design might discover concept.

Focus on overall layout, patterning, relationships between functions/elements.

Rapid-prototyping. Generate many options. 'Graphic brainstorming.'

Rough bubble diagrams with notes, evaluations.

Group decision making

Business Model Generation canvas

Detailed Design ( to smaller details)

Take the chosen schematic to a more refined and defined design

Get exact!

Clean drawings, diagrams, market analysis, enterprise plans.

Detailed outputs (reports, timeliness, budgets, materials, implementation and maintenance plans, etc.)

Feasibility Study

Detailed spatial design.

Succession planning

Ensure functional interconnectedness of the elements.

Implementation

Concrete Experience, Active Experimentation.

Phase implementation to suit goals, client's budget, energy, priorities and landscape needs

Expect the unexpected. Stay flexible and design on the fly.

Use project management tools

PERT: Program Evaluation and Review Techniques

Analytical estimating

Gantt Charts

Evaluation

Reflective Observation (RO)

Reflect on design process, measure effectiveness of praxis.

Evaluate time and cost estimates

Evaluate current of design and implementation.

Client/group discussions/debrief.

Develop observation and documentation systems

Approaches

Analytical?

Pitfalls

Stuck in a box

Failure to observe undermines design

Design concept generation is often creative

Generate concrete, hypothetical deductions

Use design frameworks and processes

Apply prior knowledge

Intuitive?

Be present and sensing.

Connect and create

Let go of the ego, engage the present, and rapid-prototype the future.

Channel collective design intelligence.

Pitfalls

Emotional issues may cloud design

Failure to articulate our processes is a failure to support allies.

Integrate, don't Segregate!

How?

Deep observation, present sensing is complemented by structured/guided surveying and data collection.

Intuition and analysis are both included in the design cycle.

Test intuition with analysis

Design lives within us

We are natural designers

'The techniques serve only as touchstones to connect each of us to our own living creative process' (D. Jacke).