Design Brief Research Articles

“Good Design is Good Business”: An Empirical Conceptualization of Design Management Using the Balanced Score Card

Despite the increasing attention Design Management has received from academics and practitioners a definitive conceptualization or a widely‐agreed upon empirical measure of the construct does not yet exist. This paper proposes a new measurement of Design Management based on the informational elements captured in product design briefs. Exploratory Factor Analysis results suggest that Design Management is made up of eleven clusters: F1 Customer Insights; F2 Business Model; F3 Aesthetics; F4 Authenticity; F5 Symbolic/Experiential Value; F6 Functional Value; F7 Promotions/Distribution; F8 Sustainability; F9 Production/Development; F10 Project Management; F11 Risk/Safety. Our analysis describes how these factors show differing effects on measures of firm performance at the product project‐ and competitive advantage‐levels (for example, F1, F3, and F9 are strongly and significantly positively related to both sets of measures while F4, F5, and F8 are more important to the competitive advantage of a firm than to any individual product offering). Our findings are organized and discussed using the Balanced Score Card for Design Management tool made up of (1) Customer Perspective (Design as differentiator); (2) Process perspective (Design as coordinator); (3) Learning and Innovation perspective (Design as transformer); and (4) Financial perspective (Design as good business).

“What's the Brief?”

“What's the Brief?”

THE INFLUENCE OF DESIGN BRIEF INFORMATION ON CREATIVE OUTCOMES BY NOVICE AND ADVANCED STUDENTS

AbstractThis study centers on using different types of brief information to support creative outcomes in architectural and engineering design and its relation to design expertise. We explore the influence of design briefs characterized by abstract representations and/or instructions to frame design problems on the creativity of concept sketches produced by novice and advanced students. Abstract representations of problem requirements served as stimuli to encourage associative thinking and knowledge transfer. The Ishikawa/Fishbone Diagram was used to foster design restructuring and to modify viewpoints about the main design drives and goals. The design outcomes generated by novice and advanced engineering/architecture students were assessed for their creativity using a pairwise experimental design. Results indicated that advanced students generated more novel design solutions while also contributing the most useful solutions overall. Implications for creativity in design education and professional practice are presented. Educational programs aimed at promoting creativity in the design studio may find it helpful to consider that the way design briefs are constructed can either promote or inhibit different aspects of design creativity.

'Lies against history?'

During the twentieth century a great many monumental towers and tower terminations were so severely damaged by fire, tempest or war that the question arose as to whether, and if so how, they should be rebuilt. Should it be in the exact same form as before the destruction, or should some other solution be sought? In the latter case, was a return to an earlier (putative) original version preferable to something new? And if the latter, should one opt for contemporary architecture, or was a more historicizing formal idiom desirable?
 To what extent was the guideline embraced in 1917 by the government department responsible for cultural heritage (Rijksbureau voor de Monumentenzorg), which stipulated a contemporary architectural style for additions in the interests of historical honesty, actually followed in practice? In the localities themselves there was a preference for restoration of the old state, and that did eventually occur in a number of cases. On the basis of some twenty examples, this article looks for the first time at whether any clear trend can be discerned in the choices made. Of special importance in this context are the five design competitions (for the town hall tower in Leiden and for visually defining church towers in Arnhem, Zutphen, Hulst and Weert), because specific requirements could be laid down in the design brief, after which a jury was required to choose from among a series of entries and to publicly substantiate its preference.
 The need to rebuild was always a given, even if, as when the entire church had been destroyed by war, it did not enjoy the highest priority. Entirely medieval towers like that of the Martini Church in Doesburg, had the greatest chance of being rebuilt in the original form. If a Gothic tower had a termination in Renaissance, Baroque or Classicist style, the decision was often informed by an aesthetic judgement: the tower termination of St Stephen’s Church in Nijmegen was considered characteristic, that of St Eusebius’ Church in Arnhem was not. The Baroque termination of the Abbey Tower in Middelburg was largely reinstated but modified to accommodate the demand for a larger carillon. In practice the dividing line lay in the middle of the seventeenth century; later terminations tended to be considered too unremarkable.
 Neo-Gothic spires atop Gothic towers were always replaced. Sometimes by a reconstruction (free or otherwise) of an older termination in Renaissance or Baroque style, such as in St Christopher’s Cathedral in Roermond; in other cases with a modern, wholly new termination, as in St Willibrord’s Church in Hulst, or a slightly historicizing one, as for St Martinus’ Church in Weert. Even though undamaged by war, the cast iron spire of St James’s Church in The Hague was replaced by a spire that harked back to the original sixteenth-century spire.
 In the case of Gothic towers, one option that was never really tried was a reconstruction of the original (needle) spire, either because it had never been realized, or because of a lack of reliable information. Only in the case of St Walburgis’s Church in Zutphen was this option considered, but in the end it was decided to rebuild the fire-ravaged ‘pepper pot’ spire.

Function and forethought in design

The function or intended use of a device such as a fire escape is escape from fire, whether or not it is ever actually used as such or it acquires other uses. Biological function, on the other hand, depends, in one way or another, on actual use. Philosophical attempts to explain artifact function by analogy with biological function or to build a unified theory of function are nonetheless common. What such attempts routinely overlook, however, is the role of forethought in intentional function. I defend the traditional intended use view of function, emphasize the role of forethought and argue that design intentions are rationally grounded in a design brief, for which there is no obvious natural analogue. • Biological analogies often fail to account for function or design in artifacts. • Biological function depends on actual use; artifact function depends on intended use. • A fire escape has the function of escape from fire even if it is never used as such. • Forethought is central to both artifact function and design. • Function in design is grounded in the design brief.

Selection and framing of briefs for educational circular design projects

PurposeThis paper aims to present key characteristics of educational design briefs for the circular economy (CE) through the analysis of 11 design briefs focussing on real-life challenges related to sustainability and the CE, developed with collaborating industry partners for four consecutive circular design internships conducted in Ireland, Catalunya, The Netherlands and Sweden.Design/methodology/approachThese four internships were conducted between September 2017 and June 2019 and each internship lasted three to four months. The supervisors for each internship collaborated with local industry partners genuinely interested in adopting sustainable business practices to develop design briefs focussing on real-life challenges they face. The briefs for each internship were developed further according to the feedback of the interns, industry partners and supervisors of previous internships.FindingsFive steps of brief making for circular design were identified as reviewing the existing resources, emphasizing the importance of systems thinking, emphasizing the importance of collaboration for the CE, focussing on circularity and communicating expectations. The paper outlines how design briefs changed throughout the consecutive internships according to the different curricula and the characteristics of an educational circular design brief.Originality/valueFor design educators and researchers, the value of this paper lies in presenting the steps for the brief making of educational circular design projects. Additionally, the characteristics of circular design briefs are outlined, discussing their focus and content to act as a guide for design educators.

The Impacts of Design Heuristics on Concept Generation for a COVID-19 Brief

Design heuristics (DHS) as a tool can help boost designers’ creativity in early conceptual design phases. We have developed a set of DHS for digital innovation (DHS10). There are numerous studies on DHS impacts/outcomes in the recent years. However, little research has been conducted to identify whether DHS has lasting benefits on designers’ ideation performance. This paper explores whether DHS10 can help designers achieve more creative ideas based on different design briefs, and if DHS has lasting impacts on or benefits for students. An empirical study was conducted with two groups (i.e., 32 students who learned DHS10 five weeks ago, and 24 students who studied DHS10 instantly). They were asked to address an open-ended design brief on COVID-19 and generate as many innovative ideas as possible. The results suggest DHS has impacts on students who learned DHS just now and five weeks ago. The effect is stronger on those who just learned DHS10. We suggest that DHS10 be provided for ideation as it provides texts and visual stimuli for designers. DHS10 also has the potential to help students understand digital innovation and generate ideas accordingly.

Design studio performance in complex spatial projects: lessons from The Netherlands

ABSTRACT The Netherlands has a strong design tradition in planning for the built environment. After a period of neglect, attention for the role of design studios has resurged, particularly for addressing complex spatial projects. These area-based projects have impacts that cut across local to regional scales, so setting up a design process that addresses these scales and engages a wide range of relevant parties proves helpful for formulating design briefs and identifying potential spatial outcomes. This paper discusses the role of the design studio in the Dutch practice, exploring to what extent it helps in identifying the integrated outcomes desired.

BIM and Design Briefing Integration: Feasibility Study and Conceptual System Framework Development

Design briefing plays a crucial role to the success of a building project. Some new methods of design briefing have been developed recently, but rarely integrated with Building Information Modelling (BIM). This paper presents a feasibility study of implementing BIM in the design briefing and develop a conceptual system framework to present possible functionalities and processes of BIM-based design briefing. This study started with a series of the interviews with professionals in the industry as well as academics in various universities in the UK. A thematic analysis has been carried out to analyse the interview transcripts. The development of conceptual system framework following the software engineering method presents the major functional modules and relevant datasets of an BIM-based design briefing system which identified in the interviews. The paper also discusses on both the benefit and the potential difficulties of BIM-based design briefing, although 93 % of the interviewees agree that BIM technology should be adopted in design briefing to improve the quality of design briefing process and to involve other stakeholders and POE data in design briefing.

Demystifying the Two Different Design Approaches of Architect Paul Stallan, Descriptive and Comparative Analysis of His Conventional and Iconic Design Approaches

The design process is a mysterious problem solving activity which is full of hidden cognitive processes. Investigating the design behaviour of expert architects may demystify the hidden aspects in the design cognition. Accordingly, the paper emphasizes that more thinking aloud sessions with expert architects can give the opportunity to investigate the design behaviour towards the design briefs and constraints. Therefore, the protocol analysis is used as the research method to investigate the two architectural design approaches of the pioneering Scottish Architect Paul Stallan. The analysis of the two design processes presents significant differences in the design methodology of the two different design approaches.

Utilising Mood Boards as an Image Elicitation Tool in Qualitative Research

The use of image elicitation methods has been recognised in qualitative research for some time; however, the use of mood boards to prompt participant discussion is currently an under-researched area. This article explores the use of mood boards as a data collection method in qualitative research. Used in design disciplines mood boards allow designers to interpret and communicate complex or abstract aspects of a design brief. In this study, I utilise mood boards as being part creative visual method and part image elicitation device. The use of mood boards is explained here in the context of a research project exploring masculinity and men’s reflexivity. In this article, I consider the benefits of utilising this method in researching reflexivity and gender before offering a critical appraisal of this method and inviting others to explore how mood boards might enhance research projects involving elicitation.

Local Traditions and Global Inspiration: Design Students in Singapore and Norway

AbstractToday’s graphic design students embody inspiration from sources associated with globalisation, not least online, as well as local impulses from everyday life. In this article, we draw upon the work of two student groups – one in Norway, one in Singapore – to investigate the relationship between input and how they are used to design the packaging of food products. Two classes got similar design briefs and worked simultaneously in two countries, communicating through a common Facebook group. By the end of the project, each class discussed and analysed their sources of inspiration. The design solutions were dissected in separate design elements to look for national characteristics, despite similar international digital inspiration. By investigating cultural differences and similarities in designing based on the hypothesis that design students in Singapore and Norway have the same online design inspiration, this article demonstrates how international sources of inspiration affect the local visual traditions of designers. However, the prioritisation of design elements reveals that despite living in a global network society, designers still adhere to national design traditions.

The Design Brief as a Creativity Catalyst in Design Education: Priming through Problem Statement

AbstractThe design brief informs particularly the first phases of the design process; however, there are very limited studies on its role and functions. The current study proposes a framework that relates problem statement types in a design brief to creative outcomes by promoting the priming effect, which is a cognitive phenomenon describing the ways individuals behave accordingly to the way they receive a stimulus. The claim is that the brief has the potential to stimulate creativity and influence the type of outcomes by priming the design students using the problem statement. An experiment was conducted in which two groups of design students generated sketches in response to two types of problem statements (in noun and verb formations) in similar design briefs. The problem statements in verb formation were found to lead to a higher number of sketches containing more novel and flexible, yet less realisable ideas. The results support the contention that the design brief and the type of problem statements have the potential to act as a catalyst for creativity early in the design process.

Exploring the effect of a visual constraint on students’ design cognition

AbstractThis paper presents the results of a study that explores the effect of a visual constraint on design behaviors of architecture students. To examine this effect, 24 second-year architecture students volunteered to participate. Each of them undertook similar conceptual design briefs in two different conditions, one with and another without a visual constraint. Retrospective reporting was used to collect the verbalization of participants. The FBS ontology was used to model the design cognition of the participants by coding their design protocols. A dynamic analysis was used to study the differences between the two conditions based on the problem–solution index. A further index, the pre-structure–post-structure index, was proposed to measure design behavior differences between the two conditions. The correspondence analysis was used to explore the effect of gender. There were statistically significant differences in the distributions of cognitive effort between the two groups. These differences include in the visual constraint group a decrease in the focus on behavior before structure and in the processes related to it, compared to the non-visual constraint group. The non-visual constraint group changed their focus on problem framing and solving while adding a visual constraint led participants to focus simultaneously on both framing and solving. The visual constraint group had a different attention temporally to pre- and post-structure design processes during designing than the non-visual constraint group. The order of experiencing the two design sessions had only a small effect. The results of correspondence analysis demonstrate that there are categorical gender differences not found using statistical testing.

Futureproofing Complex Infrastructure Projects Using Real Options

Existing project performance measures in the infrastructure sector focus on the construction performance (time, cost, quality) and pay less attention to lifecycle performance. The consequence of this shortsighted perspective is that decisions taken early lead to poorer solutions. Infrastructure that should last centuries quickly becomes inadequate, leading to costly reconfigurations. Real options reasoning can help managers to overcome this issue by unlocking lifecycle performance thinking in complex infrastructure projects. Real options reasoning enables managers to explore the value of flexibility by employing futureproofing strategies during the development process. From the analysis of interviews with experts in healthcare infrastructure, we observed that projects that led to obsolescence were developed using tight design briefs and were focused on capital targets, and decision-makers were less invested in the concept of futureproofing. On the other hand, projects that were futureproofed followed a loosely defined design brief and shifted focus toward whole-life targets. We make five recommendations for futureproofed infrastructure.

Urban Narrative: Computational Linguistic Interpretation of Large Format Public Participation for Urban Infrastructure

Urban Narrative works at the interface between public participation and participatory design to support collaboration processes for urban planning and design. It applies computational linguistics to interpret large format public consultation by identifying shared interests and desired qualities for urban infrastructure services and utilities. As a proof of concept, data was used from the Christchurch public engagement initiative called ‘Share an Idea,’ where public thoughts, ideas, and opinions were expressed about the future redevelopment of Christchurch after the 2011 earthquakes. The data set was analysed to identify shared interests and desired connections between institutional, communal, or personal infrastructures with the physical urban infrastructures in terms of buildings, public places, and utilities. The data has been visualised using chord charts from the D3 JavaScript open source library to illustrate the existence of connections between soft and hard urban infrastructures along with individual contributions or stories. Lastly, the analysis was used to create an infographic design brief that compares and contrasts qualitative information from public consultation with quantitative municipal statistical data on well-being.

Life-cycle assessment environmental sustainability in bridge design and maintenance

Interviews were undertaken with expert bridge designers to reveal their opinions on environmental considerations and the possibility of integrating life-cycle assessment into the bridge design process. Bridge designers were generally found to consider that the need for the bridge, access for future maintenance, use of quality materials, longevity, cost savings and sustainability are matters more important than life-cycle environmental emissions. Moreover, the limited awareness of life-cycle assessments among bridge designers along with a keenness to execute clients’ requirements, mostly on the basis of cost, has further widened the gap. This gap could be overcome by ensuring that detailed environmental matters such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions are considered as design criteria; encouraging designers to highlight emerging environmental matters in the design brief; heightening awareness of life-cycle assessment among designers to increase its potential usage; and factoring life-cycle assessment damage indicators into the bridge design process.

The Algorithm that Ate the Street: The Storyboards

These eight storyboards were exhibited at the 16th Annual International Conference of the Architectural Humanities Research Association at the University of Dundee, UK. They were designed by Paul Guzzardo and Gustavo Cardon. The tableaus are set in barrios in Buenos Aires, Argentina. They were developed for two Buenos Aires architectural graduate workshops and UNESCO presentations in France, Lithuania and Sweden. 1 The storyboards were proposed as an alternative to the desiccated storylines that gag most urban design briefs. They offer a new mythic stew, as “triage way stations” to map a way out of the digital mesh-up we are slapped hard against and as mythic blueprints for a line of firewalls against weaponized data. Despite the fact that digital buckshot is coming at hyper-speed, a conversation about myth and the practice of architecture has been ignored. Myths contain seeds of new stories, stories that incrementally increase intelligence. 2

Corporate social responsibility and construction design briefs: international case studies

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an increasingly significant area of focus for company operations in a wide variety of economic sectors. Organisations committed to CSR go beyond regulatory compliance and meeting their legal and economic duties, to take into account their broader social and environmental responsibilities. Almost all organisations operate in, and sometimes commission, buildings and/or infrastructure. This paper addresses the extent to which organisations with CSR policies and that are involved in major new construction projects embed their CSR objectives consistently into the design and development process. A framework for analysis is developed from the CSR literature and is applied to four major projects, one project for each of four major organisations. All four organisations were found to have placed a strong public-facing emphasis on social and environmental responsibility. However, only two incorporated their CSR objectives consistently throughout their design and implementation processes for new projects. This lack of thorough integration of CSR issues into projects is considered both to limit the extent to which these projects will deliver social and environmental benefits and to reduce the incentive for the construction industry to innovate, to improve its performance and to safeguard the environment.

Does an open-plan office actually work? A workplace gap analysis: importance and perceived support of key activities

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the performance of open-plan office layouts and to identify occupants’ concerns in existing open-plan office layouts.Design/methodology/approachWorkplace activity questionnaire (WAQ) was administered in the form of an online survey in March 2019, as part of a design briefing process for the expansion of the office facilities located in Bangalore, India, for a Fortune 100 software technology company. A total of 4,810 questionnaires were distributed and 3,877 responses were received (80.6% response rate). After that, 849 incomplete responses were eliminated from the analysis, resulting in a final sample size of 3,028. The questionnaire included 11 key activities conducted by the office workers and established the gap between the workers’ perceived importance and support from their existing facilities using a five-point Likert scale.FindingsThe findings of this study provide strong evidence that different physical environments influence the satisfaction of occupants. An improvement of the facilities, especially by enabling areas for quiet working, should be prioritized in relation to the other activities surveyed. Also, office workers perceived significantly different support levels for quiet working depending on their department, while there was no significant difference between the workers of different buildings.Research limitations/implicationsIndividual demographic information was not collected because of the possibility of personal identification. There was also a lack of objective environmental measures, such as temperature and noise level. Thus, the quality of indoor environments was unknown. In this study, some respondents mentioned dissatisfaction with indoor environmental quality, including noise, temperature and air quality in their comments.Originality/valueIn the programming stage of a workplace design process, the WAQ survey tool has value because it renders important insight into the perception of a live workplace, which can then be used to determine priorities for a design effort. It clearly identifies the areas to focus on, ask questions about and develop improvements. Validating its reliability will enhance its credibility and confidence in its use. In addition, the large sample size provides statistical advantages in the data analysis, providing a higher likelihood to find a true positive of the findings of the study. Also, having a relatively high response rate provides an advantage of mitigating the risk of having non-response bias in the analysis.