How an Architect Created Design Requirements

There is an anecdotal view that designers, during a conceptual design process, not just synthesise solutions that satisfy initially given requirements, but also create by themselves novel design requirements that capture important aspects of the given problem. Further, it is believed that design sketches serve as a thinking tool for designers to do this. Then, what kinds of cognitive interaction with their own sketches enable designers to create novel requirements? The purpose of this paper is to answer this question. We examined the cognitive processes of a practising architect, using a protocol analysis technique. Our examinations focused on whether particular types of cognitive actions account for the creation of novel design requirements. We found that intensive occurrences of a certain type of perceptual actions, acts of establishing new relations or visual features on the sketches, are likely to co-occur with the creation of requirements. This suggests that this type of perceptual actions are the key constituent of acts of creating novel requirements, and therefore one of the important actions in sketching activities. This presents evidence of the view that designing is a situated act, as well as has an implication for design education