Abstract
Most of the previous research efforts for design process modeling had such assumptions as “design as problem solving,” “design as decision making,” and “design by analysis,” and did not explicitly address “design as synthesis.” These views lack notion and understanding about synthesis. Compared with analysis, synthesis is less understood and clarified. This paper discusses our fundamental view on synthesis and approach toward a reasoning framework of design as synthesis. To do so, we observe the designer’s activity and formalize knowledge operations in design processes. From the observation, we propose a hypothetical reasoning framework of design based on multiple model-based reasoning. We discuss the implementation strategy for the framework.
Hypothetical Reasoning via Provenance Abstraction
