Welcome Week 4 – Introduction to conceptual design for structural engineers 10:30am – 12:30pm London time

Contents Orientation and contracting Review of material so far New design task Feedback and contact

1 Orientation & Contracting

Orientation ‘Raise your hand’, ‘Agree/Disagree’ and ‘Laugh’ using ‘set status’

Orientation ‘Raise your hand’, ‘Agree/Disagree’ and ‘Laugh’ using ‘set status’ Ask questions in ‘Chat’

Orientation ‘Raise your hand’, ‘Agree/Disagree’ and ‘Laugh’ using ‘set status’ Ask questions in ‘Chat’ See who is talking in ‘Attendees’

Orientation ‘Raise your hand’, ‘Agree/Disagree’ and ‘Laugh’ using ‘set status’ Ask questions in ‘Chat’ See who is talking in ‘Attendees’ ‘Mute your mic’ when you are not talking

Contracting: Q1 What do you want out of this training?

Contracting: Q2 What can you offer other people?

Contracting: Q3 How might you sabotage it?

That’s our contract to each other Our terms of engagement We will review these every session

2 Review of material so far

Can we describe design a process?

Design as a process diagram

What did we learn about the briefing phase in the design process?

4 elements of a brief

4 elements of a brief The explicit — what they do say. The implicit — what they mean by what they say. The assumed — what they don’t thing they need to say. The unknown — what they don’t say because they haven’t yet realised they want it.

The designer’s paradox

The designer’s paradox The client doesn’t know what they want until they know what they can have. You don’t know what the answer will necessarily look like until you have started designing.

Where do ideas come from?

An idea is a new connection between existing elements in the mind

Control two things:

Control two things: The information in the mind

Control two things: The information in the mind How we form new connections

Three sources of information The brief Professional knowledge Outside interests

What information does the brief provide? Background/context Geometry Relationships Use cases

What do you already know about that you can draw upon? Structural typologies Material properties Construction techniques Reference projects

How can outside interests provide information? Personal interests Experiences Things you have seen

How can we mix the information in our minds to create new connections? Ask ‘what if?’ Change the key system Draw from a different perspective

Breakout instructions Brainstorm what is conceptual design

What is conceptual design?

What is conceptual design?

How do we know if our ideas are good?

Our ideas must meet all the requirements of the brief

What if we meet all the requirements and the idea still is no good?

Then the brief needs more adding to it.

What is conceptual design Early stages in the overall design process Time at which key design decisions are made which define the nature of the outcome Key systems identified Time at which big changes are possible Time at which information is incomplete Time of greatest opportunity for designers.

Relating the brief to our ideas The brief is a set of design criteria For each criteria there is a test The tests are applied to models Models are expressions of ideas

Iterative idea development Establish the list of tests and models Do the tests on an idea version 1.0 Which tests are pass/fail? Adjust the idea to create version 1.1 Re-run the tests and repeat

3 New design task

Breakout instructions Spend 10mins working on your own Spend 10mins discussing in your breakout rooms Spend 10mins reviewing altogether 1st breakout: explore the brief 2nd breakout: develop ideas 3rd breakout: model and test ideas

4 Feedback and contact

Feedback http://bit.ly/IStructE-webinar-feedback

Stay in touch My blog: Eiffelover.com Posts and podcasts about engineering, creativity and practical philosophy Raise your hand if you would like to be added to my mailing list http://eepurl.com/cpOOFP

Thank you!