What do architects and students perceive in their design sketches? A protocol analysis

The present research aims at examining what information architects think of and read off from their own freehand sketches, and at revealing how they perceptually interact with and benefit from sketches. We explored this in a protocol analysis of retrospective reports; each participant worked on an architectural design task while drawing freehand sketches and later reported what she/he had been thinking of during the design task. This research lies within the scope of examinations of why freehand sketches as external representation are essential for crystallizing design ideas in early design processes.     

Interpretation: its role in architectural designing

Through studies of processes of architectural designing, a sub-process of interpretation emerges as the single most important force in the shaping of design solutions. An interpretation is formed when design moves, which are enacted on knowledge pertaining to the task, transform its pieces into a stable structure by achieving a unique relationship among them. A look at first-year students' design efforts demonstrates how, through construing the task, interpretations are not generated. The potential for creating global interpretations is likely to be found mostly at the starting point, which reflects the designer's state of mind at the outset of the desing endeavour. Different ways in which experimentation is carried out are analysed, notably play and discovery, without which it is hard to imagine a process of composition of pieces of knowledge. Play and discovery are shown to induce new interpretations and to help substantiate old ones. The contribution of long chains of moves and the timely generation and evaluation of design criteria and constraints is pointed out. These different cognitive aspects reveal how central an activity interpreting is throughout the entire process of architectural designing.     

BTO的实施策略与流程设计

按顾客订单生产(Build-to-Order,BTO)是破除大量生产弊端、提高顾客服务水平的新型运作战略,但其成功推行尚缺乏理论指导和成熟经验供借鉴.以一家大型客车制造企业为对象,通过现场实证调查方法,深入研究了采用按订单生产模式所需要的实施策略和流程设计要点,并阐述了相应的管理涵义.调查结果和分析结论有助于企业运作模式转型与订单履行策略的选择决策.     

Design through making: crafts knowledge as facilitator to collaborative new product development

Collaboration between manufacturers and craft makers is believed by many crafts theorists to offer new originality, insight and specialist expertise to design for production. In practice, however, there exists a discrepancy between this ideal and a reality of unreconcilable cultural and methodological differences. This paper documents and discusses such a collaboration as an example of best practice with implications for managers, educators, designers and craft makers. It identifies a new role for craft makers with the appropriate knowledge and experience to act as bridges within companies, facilitating the adoption of design methodologies appropriate to changing priorities in the manufacturing industries.     

Handling the complexities of real-life job shops when implementing workload control: a decision framework and case study

The workload control literature highlights the importance of balancing the shop floor workload, but also acknowledges that this can conflict with processing the most urgent orders – hence, there is a trade-off. In practice, shops contain many complexities, e.g. simultaneous batching and sequence-dependent set-up times that may conflict with processing the most urgent orders and require other solutions than workload balancing to avoid capacity losses. This adds to the trade-off dilemma, which traditionally only considers timing and balancing. This paper develops a framework that determines whether to address a complexity through order release or dispatching. It comprises two dimensions: (i) the typical position of a complexity in the routing of an order and (ii) the criticality of the complexity. A case study is presented, which demonstrates the framework’s utility and illustrates the development of specific solutions designed to handle the complexities. Most complexities present in the case require handling at the order release stage. The challenges of handling multiple complexities at this decision level are evaluated. Finally, the implications for managers and future research are outlined.     

面向可持续生活方式的工业设计策略与案例研究

可持续设计必须考虑到在整个产品生命周期中环境、经济和社会等因素的影响。通过系统分析和比较可持续设计、绿色设计和生态设计等概念,研究了可持续生活方式的表现形式和内涵。在此基础上,提出了可持续生活方式导向下的产品创新设计策略,这些策略主要包括关注服务系统、关注地域环境、关注公众参与和关注用户行为。应用这些策略,分析了由美国哥伦比亚大学地球研究所的科学家和工程师所开发的竹制自行车项目。     

Structural design in the eighteenth century: James Essex and the roof of Lincoln Cathedral Chapter House

The design of novel structural forms can happen either by a process of trial and error supported by testing, or by adopting some conceptual model of structural behaviour. These conceptual models are often simple analogies rather than sophisticated abstractions. This paper provides a case study of one particular example; a method used in the design of an unusually large roof structure during the eighteenth century. The study is a contribution from historical materials to the ‘natural history’ of design.