Chris et al,
Just an idea: I tend to distinguish between 'creativity' and 'synthesis'.
Coarsely put, creativity is bring about 'from nothing', whereas synthesis is
building complexity from simplicity.
This isn't to say that the 2 are disjoint. I think they're more like
variations on a theme or points on a spectrum. Even when working from 90%
"well-defined data," the result is something that simply didn't exist before,
so there is 'creativity' there. Still, I think most people would agree an act
of "real creativity" is more than building something complex out of simple things.
On those occasions when a little 'novelty' is injected into things, it seems
to me largely due to a combination of (a) a certain vagueness built into the
design brief / requirements and (b) the designer's recognition of the
opportunity thereby presented. A slightly different spot on the spectrum.
Just 2 cents, maybe less.
Cheers.
Fil
Chris Rust wrote:
> Terry Love wrote:
>> The paper I drew attention to also falls into this first category. If you
>> are a building systems designer specialising in piping, the content of
>> the
>> presentation is useful design information derived from design-focused
>> research.
> I think the main question here is whether the building systems designer
> is designing or calculating when using this data. There are design
> challenges in building systems, obviously, but a great deal of the work
> involves applying pre-determined standards. A lot of engineering is
> concerned with optimising solutions to well-defined problems and
> although I don't devalue that work or the skill it takes I don't think
> it is designing, we are in danger of allowing the term to be debased if
> engineers continue to use it indiscriminately.
>
> My first proper job in industry after I finished my engineering
> apprenticeship was called "Designer", working for a well-known company
> (Dexion) "designing" warehouse installations. 90% of my work involved
> applying well-defined data to come up with a workable solution - using
> considerations like beam strength, operating clearances, floor loading,
> vehicle turning space etc etc. I did quite a lot of reading about
> technical knowledge to help with that work, usually from documents
> issued by producers. In this work there was a need to attend to the
> nature of the organisation and the buildings in use and that introduced
> an element of real designing, but a tiny part of the main job.
>
> Occasionally we came upon a problem where we needed to come up with a
> novel solution, either to the way a warehouse was operated or the
> technical configuration of the equipment and then we were designing. In
> 5 years of this work I probably came up with two technical innovations
> that allowed something new to be done and maybe a few more new ideas
> about operational methods. It was when I realised that this was where
> my real interests lay (I was always inclined to invent new systems but I
> was the last person in the office to stick with them) that I decided to
> train as a real designer. It suited me to do that in an art school
> because I'm not so good at difficult maths but there are plenty of real
> designers in the numerate fields.
>
> best
> Chris
--
Prof. Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University Tel: 416/979-5000 x7749
350 Victoria St. Fax: 416/979-5265
Toronto, ON email: [log in to unmask]
M5B 2K3 Canada http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
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