The Pagoda Design Space: Extending the Scope of Design - Principia Designae: Pre-Design, Design, and Post-Design - page 59

Fig. 5.2 Solution spaces. Top: Innovative design. Bottom: Creative Design (Rosenman and
Gero 1993 , pp. 114-115)
and the designer embarks on an extensive search, new knowledge is gained which
yields solutions that are not only beyond the designer's prior concepts, but also
beyond what had been considered acceptable within the constraints. In other words,
the boundaries can be pushed if the designer does not stick to known and acceptable
solutions but charts new territory.
A similar idea was expressed by Rosenman and Gero ( 1993 ) who associated an
extended solution space with creativity. Rosenman and Gero distinguished among
routine design, which involves the adaptation of a known solution; innovative
design, “in which the space of known solutions is extended by making variations
or adaptations to existing design” (Rosenman and Gero 1993 , p. 113), and creative
design, which “involves the generation of entirely new types [of solutions]”
(Rosenman and Gero 1993 , p. 114). In the latter case the boundaries of the solution
space are pushed not only beyond the space of known solutions, but also beyond the
space of innovative solutions. Figure 5.2 is an illustration of an innovative and a
creative solution space as proposed by Rosenman and Gero.