Constructing and Exploring Solution spaces

Developing a design methodology that accounts for system- and component-level parameters in the design of products is a challenge for design and manufacturing organizations. Designed products like automobiles, personal electronics, mass-customized homes, and apparel follow design processes that have evolved over time into compartmentalized approaches toward design synthesis. Many products are designed "by committee " because the nature of the problem is sufficiently sophisticated that isolating the different disciplines of engineering, design, manufacturing, and marketing has become the only way to produce a product. This thesis rethinks design methods by critically analyzing design rules and their role in product development. Systematic and unbiased mapping of possible configurations is a method employed in generative design systems. A mapping of a solution space is achieved by parameterizing the constraints of the problem in order to develop a feasible envelope of possibilities at the component and system level