Inside the Designer: Understanding imagining in spatial design Inside the Designer | Page 8

Marisha McAuliffe
some well-known designers such as architect Frank Lloyd Wright who
proposed:
Conceive the building in the imagination, not on paper but
the mind, thoroughly – before touching paper...Let it live
there – gradually taking more definite form before committing
it to the drafting board (Wright, 1928).
Reading this then prompted questions about what we needed to focus
on and how we might in our educational role facilitate
conceptualisation in the imagination in design education. As pointed
out by Athavankar (1997), this was a question to which at that time
there were very few, if any, answers:
[Design] education has neglected the development of
visualization and imaging abilities, not fully realizing their
potentials as well as implications for creative pursuits. There
are no conscious attempts to promote the development of
imagery and abilities to control images voluntarily and thereby
facilitate problem solving (Athavankar, 1997, p. 39).
To better understand the context of this, an in-depth review of design
methodological literature was undertaken which is presented in
Chapter 2 of this book. As outlined, the review pointed to early
research concerned with developing prescriptive models of design in
order to improve process efficiency and product performance.
Underlying this was an understanding of design as a mechanistic,
sequential activity. When these new models failed to achieve the
desired outcomes, especially in the spatial design areas such as
architecture and interior design, attention turned to better
understanding the nature of the design task, and with this a new
conception of designing as a heuristic, satisficing activity emerged. As
the review shows, this was facilitated through research concerned
with the nature of design problems and design as a (creative)
cognitive activity. Design problems were identified as being ill-defined
and ‘wicked’ due to their complexity and future oriented nature,
demanding a generative way of reasoning involving abductive, as well
as inductive and deductive, thinking. While there was some associated
research to do with visualisation and modelling, this was minimal,
prompting Kokotovich’s (2000) call for more systematic methodology
in order to extend the views expressed in the design literature relating
to creative mental synthesis. He argued that whilst there has been
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