Creativity, emergence and evolution in design

This paper commences by outlining notions of creativity before examining the role of emergence in creative design. Various process models of emergence are presented; these are based on notions of additive and substitutive variables resulting in additive and substitutive schemas. Frameworks for both representation and process for a computational model of creative design are presented. The representational framework is based on design prototypes whilst the process framework is based on an evolutionary model. The computational model brings both representation and process together. Keywor&': Creative design: Emergence: Evolutionary processes; Design computing 1. Creativity in design In order to develop and describe any model of creativity in design we need to have an acceptable conception of design. Design, in one sense, can be conceived of as a purposeful, constrained, decision making, exploration and learning activity. Decision making implies a set of variables, the values of which have to be decided. Search is the common process used in decision making. Exploration here is akin to changing the problem spaces within which decision making occurs. Learning implies a restructuring of knowledge. The designer operates within a context which partially depends on the designer's perceptions of purposes, constraints and related contexts. These perceptions change as the designer explores the emerging relationships between putative designs and the context and as the designer learns more about possible designs. Whilst much more can be said about design [1-5], this provides a sufficient conception to provide a context within which the rest of this paper sits. Creativity and creativity in design, in particular, have many interpretations [6---1l]. There is a clear distinction to be drawn between considering creativity as residing only in the artefact and evaluated by society and considering that certain processes have the potential to produce artefacts which may be evaluated as creative. This paper adopts the approach that whilst the creativeness Email: john(,~ arch.usyd.edu.au 0950-7051/96/$15.00 "~ 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved Pll S0950-7051 (96)01054-4 of an artefact is societal in its evaluation there may be processes which can aid in the understanding of how creative artefacts may be produced. Creativity, it has been suggested, is not simply concerned with the introduction of something new into a design, although that appears to be a necessary condition for any process that claims to be labelled creative. Rather, the introduction of 'something new' should lead to a result that is unexpected (as well as being valuable). More formally we can describe routine designing as following a defined schema where the expectations of what follows is defined by the schema. Creative designing, which is part of non-routine designing, can be described as perturbing the scheme to produce unexpected and incongruous results. These new results are still understandable either in a current or shifted context. Although the boundary between routine and creative designs is difficult to define there is less difficulty in articulating differences between processes used in the production of routine and creative designs. This paper elaborates a process-oriented view of computational design creativity. It uses the notions of unexpectedness and emergence within a schema-based view of design. 2. Model of creative design One useful way to provide a framework for design is through the conceptual schema design prototypes [12]