What is design? What is the design process? Despite more than forty years of design studies, design seems still to be an obscure process. There is no consensus on what design is, and what the design process is. It is hardly possible to describe how architects develop their creative designs. One widely held view of design is Simon’s (1973) definition of design as an “ill-structured problem,” or Churchman’s (1967) “wicked problem,” because of its ambiguous goals and incomplete information (Voss and Post, 1988). The solutions to this ill-structured problem in design are still as various as design definitions are.

Rittel and Webber (1973) described design as a “problem-defining process” in which designers located the problem among “complex causal networks.” Parnas (1986) described a design process as a "long sequence of design decisions, with no clear statements of why [the designers] do things the way they do." They explained the intractable nature of the design process as identifying ambiguous boundaries and exploring endless “causal chains” in the solution space. Rittel (1972) illustrated the use of causal patterns in solving wicked problems, such as consequential, non-deterministic, relational, and recursive causality and concludes that naive scientific approaches (rationality) might not be able to solve wicked problems because of these complex causalities. This workshop revisits Rittel and Webber’s (1973) description of the characteristics of wicked problems from the perspective of complex causal patterns.

In this workshop, students will use four computational models of artificial life - recursion, Koch’s curve (Lindenmayer system), cellular automata, and flocking algorithms - to learn about complex causal patterns, such as recursive, consequential, decentralized, and distributed causalities. By using the four models of artificial life, students will design high-rise residential buildings in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The workshop consists of four successive modules. In each module, students redo the same design project. However, they learn and use a different computational model of artificial life and causal patterns. During the repeated modules, they will learn about computer programming and software design, and will have a deep understanding of design and design processes.