Designing the Problem

10/1/2009 Uncategorized

System-combinations

An interest of mine (and several fellow Utilians) is the application of our design-oriented, problem-solving skills to defining and setting the rules of problems themselves. In part, I suspect this interest is what has led several of us from designing buildings to the challenges of designing urban codes, guidelines, policies, etc.

If this sort of thing is your cup of tea, you’ll find a number of essays dealing with these topics on Hugh Dubberly’s website. Although Dubberly’s focus is on service design and the relationships between products, services and experiences – much of his work is applicable to what we do. A couple of my recent favorites:

On using models, maps and diagrams in order to design complex systems:
Models of Models
Supermodeler

Overview of Horst Rittel, part of the Design Methods Group at Berkeley in the 1960’s along with Christopher Alexander:
Why Horst W.J. Rittel Matters

 

– Ryan