Approaches that Help Students Generate New Design Solutions

Recently a new design methodology, EnvironmentBased Design (EBD) [1, 2] has been developed. In using the model of EBD, three elements are important: primitive synthesis knowledge, primitive environment and primitive solutions. Based on the three elements, three design strategies have been validated in [3] for generating new design solutions: formulating design problems differently, changing the sequence of decomposition of the design problem and extending synthesis knowledge. Increasing the possibilities of generating new design solutions may increase the chance of getting creative design solutions. Thus the three strategies for leading to new design solutions can be introduced into our engineering design education for helping and inspiring students generate creative design solutions. In this paper, we will first briefly introduce EBD model and the three design strategies leading to new design solutions, then explain how EBD can be integrated into the design education of engineering students and elaborate how the design strategies can be used to help students generate different design solutions.