Inside the Designer: Understanding imagining in spatial design Inside the Designer | Page 14

Marisha McAuliffe
Design Practice
(Spatial) Design Process
Design Thinking/
Cognition
Imagining
Synthesis
Figure 2.1: Literature review context for design process, thinking and imagining
Design Process
For the purposes of this research, design process is described as the
work undertaken by a designer or design team in generating a proposal related to a
building or interior environment. In design practice, this proposal is further
documented and developed contractually to effect its realisation for
use by the client.
Several authors including provide overviews of methodological
research in design and architecture up to the late 1990s, which reveal
an initial emphasis on interventionist and prescriptive models to
inform more effective and efficient designing and enhanced product
performance. When these models failed to have the anticipated
outcomes, researchers turned their attention to better understanding
the ill-defined nature of the design task and how designers cognitively
manage ill-definition as part of the design process.
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