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

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

3. 1
Orientation & Contracting

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

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

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

7. 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

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

9. Contracting: Q2
What can you offer other people?

10. Contracting: Q3
How might you sabotage it?

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

12. 2
Review of material so far

13. Can we describe design a process?

14. Design as a process diagram

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

16. 4 elements of a brief

17. 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.

18. The designer’s paradox

19. 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.

20. Where do ideas come from?

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

22. Control two things:

23. Control two things:
The information in the mind

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

25. Three sources of information
The brief
Professional knowledge
Outside interests

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

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

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

29. 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

30. Breakout instructions
Brainstorm what is conceptual design

31. What is conceptual design?

32. What is conceptual design?

33. How do we know if our ideas are good?

34. Our ideas must meet all the requirements of the brief

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

36. Then the brief needs more adding to it.

37. 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.

38. 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

39. 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

40. 3
New design task

41. 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

42. 4
Feedback and contact

43. Feedback

44. 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

45. Thank you!