Hello all,
I am new to this list and a veritable newbie to the field of design. I am an
Instructional Designer in a PhD program for Instructional Technology at Utah
State University.
At the moment I am very interested in the idea of generative ideas or
principles. I am curious to hear any comments that anyone has on my question.
Where do you see Walter G. Vincenti (What Engineers Know and How They Know It)
fit into the discussion, especially his work with operational principles and
normal configurations. It seems that for Vincenti the operational principle is
a general statement of how forces can come together to create some solution.
He is in the field of aviation history so he looks at the concepts of flying.
He made the point that as long as would-be flyers used the operational
principle of "flapping wings", where the force created by flapping of the
wings needed to be greater than the force of gravity on the individual, then
nothing would progress; it works fine for birds but doesn't appear to be
useful for people. It was not until we switched to the operational principle
of moving a wing through air, with the force of pushing the wing forward
creating a force of lift sufficient to overcome the effect of gravity, that
progress really began. The operational principle made the difference.
But, not only is the operational principle a general statement of bringing
forces together, it is a structured statement. It is quantifiable. In some
ways it is tangible. As I read through the previous posts on the subject the
concept of the orange came up as a generative principle. I don't mean to treat
the issue lightly (because I probably don't understand completely) but to me
the notion of an orange as a generative principle lacks a quantifiable
structure that I think is important for being able to rigorously apply a
generative principle to a design task or to communicate it to others.
Maybe quantifiable isn't the right word, but when I am designing I need clear
statements that can lead to action at some point and I need to be able to
communicate the nature of the generative idea. Each of these, I believe
require a degree of quantifiability.
Lastly, an operational principle leads normal configurations. The idea of
moving a wing through air to create lift is the operational principle.
However, it can implemented in a bunch of different ways. These represent the
normal configurations. For instance, the fixed wing and the rotary wing are to
normal configurations that come from the same operational principle but lead
to two totally different creations. In the former we get the standard airplane
we are used to and the latter is the helicopter.
To me a critical aspect of the definition of "generative" is that is generates
solutions and influences most (if not all levels of design). It seems that
Vincenti provides an operational principle for operational principles that I
think would benefit the discussion of generative principles.
Any feedback on what I have written would be welcomed. Also, does anyone have
any other references that use this construct of operational principle?
Thanks,
Jon Nelson
Instructional Designer
Utah State University
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