The Pagoda Design Space: Extending the Scope of Design - Principia Designae: Pre-Design, Design, and Post-Design - page 67

world-view, be it political, artistic, or otherwise, and constraints that do not
emanate from legal requirements or the specifics of a situation but rather from the
designer's preferences and moral codes. All subjective knowledge is dynamic of
course, and frequently changes over time, but at any given period it can be
specified. Objective knowledge is also dynamic and changes with shifts in norms.
5.4.2 Tier 2: Task Framing/Reframing
At the phase of ideation, or conceptual search, designers use their ability to interpret
the task such that it fits with the knowledge they possess and develop on the fly, and
with their priorities. This process calls for cycles of construal of the task that assist
in framing and reframing it until the designer is satisfied that the frame turns a
messy state (to use Sch¨n's terminology, e.g. Sch¨n 1984 ) into a manageable
situation. The designer or designers must be at least to some degree within their
comfort zone regarding the knowledge considered required to solve a design
problem, in order to develop mental models of possible solutions. Such mental
models are necessary in order to create actual design proposals.
5.4.3 Tier 3: Design Acts
Once a problem has been framed and reframed such that from a state of poor
definition and structure (messy state) it becomes sufficiently well-defined, within a
paradigm the designers have chosen, actual solution ideas can be developed. In
doing so, the chosen frames serve as guidelines and criteria for assessment. This is a
process of exploration, in which solutions are embodied and their rationale is tested.
The purpose of this search is to arrive at sufficiently detailed and tested solution
ideas. Often the goal is to generate a set of alternative acceptable solutions. The
designers may be individuals, homogenous teams or heterogeneous groups, who
use their professional and general knowledge to develop alternative solutions. It is
at this phase that designers navigate among all the knowledge items in their design
spaces, and possibly try to push their boundaries. Typically there are many con-
nections between this tier and the previous framing tier.
5.4.4 Tier 4: Design Proposal
After a rigorous search, resulting in one or more design solutions that have been
tested and shown to be viable, one solution is selected (or synthesized), which is
then detailed up to a specified level. This solution is subject to cycles of evaluation
and refinement, and to the approval of other stakeholders, such as clients and users.