Design Thinking Methodology

Design Thinking Overview

• Design Thinking(Authored by Rowe, Peter in 1987) serves as a method to reframe everyday projects and problems
• It is an interactive process involving design intents, operations, and justifications
• Unlike critical thinking, design thinking is process-oriented rather than judgment-oriented
• It creatively assembles variables, moving beyond data interaction

Key Aspects of Design Thinking

• The discipline of design prioritizes promoting well-being in people's lives, shifting focus from aesthetic appearance.
• Designers address harmful experiences like emotional, cognitive, and aesthetic disruptions as problems.
• Designers identify problems and find fitting solutions, considering culture, context, and personal experiences.
• Effective problem-solving requires approaching issues from multiple perspectives and favoring multidisciplinary collaboration to yield innovative solutions.
• Design thinking is an ideology and process that promotes a hands-on, user-centric approach that can provide both distinction through innovation and competitive advantages

Core Phases of Design Thinking

• The framework follows a flow: Understanding -> Explore -> Materialize
• Design thinking includes 6 phases

Step 1 - Empathize

• Involves understanding the target audience
• Requires identifying problems and challenges
• Involves looking beyond objectives to serve all stakeholders and gather valuable insights
• Architects should consider local communities, cultural connections, environmental features, and resonant aesthetics

Step 2 - Define

• Collected insights turn into actionable steps
• It is about defining the landscape and the needs of the people being designed for
• Involves identifying patterns, working towards consensus, and creating a creative brief

Step 3 - Ideate

• Creative pathways for viability and longevity are assessed through brainstorming, discussion, and strategizing
• Diverse ideas come together through collaborative efforts for analysis

Step 4 - Prototype

• This phase emphasizes experimentation, innovation, and constant iteration
• Solutions are pursued and designs are collaboratively critiqued and reformed to highlight flaws and opportunities

Step 5 - Test

• Stakeholders engage for feedback
• Feedback helps to validate design ideas, highlight gaps, and gain a clearer direction
• This phase seeks to verify goals and improve the design by testing prototypes with real customers

Step 6 - Implement

• The design vision is put into effect
• Solutions are materialized and made accessible to end-users
• Implementation is the most important step in design thinking

The Importance of Design Thinking

• Provides a user-centered process, design artifacts, and real-world testing
• Design thinking leverages collective expertise, establishing a shared language and fostering buy-in
• It promotes innovation through the exploration of multiple avenues for problem-solving

Flexibility and Iteration

• Design thinking is iterative and cyclical
• The process should be used as scaffolding that empowers customization and isn't a prescription
• Initial prototypes often lead back to the empathize and define phases, while phases can be repeated for progress
• Alignment and repetition are crucial for overcoming buy-in obstacles

History of Thinking

• Design thinking predates it's codification, appearing throughout history in the design of effective solutions
• Charles and Ray Eames utilized "learning by doing" when creating their Eames chairs
• Dressmaker Jean Muir prioritized both the feel and appearance of clothing
• David Kelley, Tim Brown, and Roger Martin coined "design thinking" in the 1990s at IDEO, formalizing existing methods

Design Thinking Model

• As a discipline, it's a refined framework for applying creative processes to business related problems and challenges
• Is a three-phase, non-linear design process involving the analytical, creative, and executive phases

Phase 1 - Analytical

• Awareness of people's needs and insights are focused on
• Designer makes observations, collects, and analyzes data to formulate a design problem

Phase 2 - Creative

• Emphasizes problem understanding and solution shaping
• Includes problem formulation, creative leap, and concept development

Phase 3 - Executive

• Focuses on solution and alternative evaluations
• Requires the designer to designate sub-problems, arrange factors, solve individual issues, and rank solutions

Key Components of Design as a Discipline

• Involves solving real-world, ill-defined problems through design
• Sustains cognitive development
• Develops abilities in nonverbal thought and communication
• Involves research into how designers work, think, and address problems

Design Processes

• Tackle ‘ill-defined' problems
• Problem-solving modes are ‘solution-focused'
• The mode of thinking is 'constructive'
• Use 'codes' that translate abstract requirements into concrete objects, reading and writing in ‘object languages’

Design Thinking Philosophy

• It is an innovative problem-solving process
• Design thinking gained prominence outside design after a 2008 Harvard Business Review article written by Tim Brown

Design Thinking Applications

• It has been applied to create new products, services, and business models, like solar panels in Africa and the Airbnb operation
• Steps include problem-solving, solution exploring, prototyping, testing, and implementation

Problem Understanding

• Understanding the problem is paramount
• Exploring the problem space before the solution space is critical to avoid the trap of empathy based on personal experiences

Designer Engagement

• Engaging with and involving the the end-user is essential for a superior design
• Immersion in the problem to accurately understand needs is essential

Design Thinking in Architecture

• Emphasizes human experience in ideation, planning, and creation
• In the archictectural space, it’s employed to push boundaries of form and function and empowering visually appealing and practical structures
• Values sustainablity, user experience, and cultural reflection
• Australian Good Design Awards champion innovative designs

Characteristics of Award-Winning Architectural Design

• Fish River Ranger Accommodation: Designed by University of South Australia students and staff, providing housing for Indigenous Australian rangers that are experts in the local community, culture, and heritage.
• Off Grid FZ House: Is an architectural design that won a Good Design Award. Designed in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, it set new standards for sustainable living. The design is self sustaining for power, water and sewage management with zero emissions
• Brookfield Place Sydney: Architectural design won a Good Design Award winner in class. Designed Make and Architectus, design honors it's construction placement.
• Princess Theatre: Offers unique possibilities. During a global pandemic, this two-story monument offers economically friendly design

Conceptual and Contextual Thinking

• Architectural education requires thought on conceptual and contextual levels.
• Contextual thinking: Focuses on environment and connection
• Conceptual thinking: Centers on abstract considerations

Key Questions for Contextual Thinking

• What relates to the context, and what decides this?
• Where are context's physical boundaries?

Concepts of architectural work

• It's in symbiosis with creative ideas and environment context
• Their harmony determines the site identity
• Identity can suggest an object identification, based on characteristic traits and focus on the concept
• It can represent an object compatibility, context creation and identity support for social allowance

Develop a concept of design

• Gather data to start design and projects
• Researched and have an understanding of what building requirements (design brief), location(site and conceptional analysis), building type(Typology)

Factors considered to generate design

• Functional, material and conceptional, formal and collaberative and philosophical

Design Concept Ideation

• Architects must break down gathered information into meaningful components and account for the problems, influences, and context
• In order to come up with a solution. designers can make use of a building or a diagram to come up with different approaches for building