Despite the central role of design studios in architectural education, a systematic understanding of how design exercises cultivate creativity remains limited. This study examines the thematic structure of architectural design exercises and their relationship to perspectives of creativity. To this end, a mixed-methods framework combining keyword co-occurrence analysis with qualitative classification was adopted. The results reveal six main themes: Visual Arts, Non-Visual Arts, Phenomenology, Rational Approaches, Social Sciences, and Technology. Among them, Non-Visual Arts emerges as the most connected theme, while Social Sciences functions as a gate theme bridging other themes. These themes are integrated through three distinct patterns, Isolated, Sequential, and Network, each governed by Internal Development, Translational, and Integrative/Dialectical mechanisms, respectively. Mapping the exercises onto Rhodes' creativity model demonstrates that Process serves as the backbone linking the Person, Product, and Press perspectives. Notably, productive tensions emerge among these perspectives, particularly between Person and Product. These findings enrich the literature on creativity in architectural design exercises and establish connections with broader creativity theories. They also suggest that instructors can move beyond intuitive or tradition-based approaches by treating architectural design exercises as pedagogical conditions that can be systematically designed to cultivate multiple perspectives of creativity in students.
This paper examines how the interplay between digital tools and information shapes architectural design. While the influence of digital tools on design practice has been widely studied, little attention has been paid to their growing dependence on information retrieval. As access to information becomes ubiquitous and design tools grow in complexity, designers increasingly rely on external information, raising concerns about bias, fixation, and constrained exploration. Drawing on qualitative log data collected during a 10-week architectural design elective, the study investigates how design processes unfold through interactions between tools and information. Using an affordance-based lens, the study conceptualizes design activity as emerging from the interaction between design knowledge and tool knowledge, and examines how information retrieval reshapes this relationship during the design process. The findings indicate that tool-related information plays a structuring role in design activity, orienting decisions, prompting shifts in design direction, and, in some cases, contributing to convergence and fixation. Grounded in an educational context, the study provides insight into how information shapes design exploration in digitally mediated settings. The results highlight how tool-related information retrieval contributes to shaping design exploration in digitally mediated environments, particularly for novice designers, while offering perspectives relevant to contemporary architectural practice.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is gaining increasing attention in design research; however, its practical application in communication design, particularly alongside existing tools during the early conceptual phase, remains underexplored. This experimental study examines how professional communication designers integrate AI into their conceptual design processes across mixed tool environments. An exploratory, design task-based experiment was conducted with 10 professional designers to observe cognitive actions across traditional physical tools, general digital tools, and AI-based digital tools (ADTs). Additionally, semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather practitioners' insights into AI utilization and to explore future directions. The results revealed three patterns of ADT integration across participants that converged analytically into two primary modes of engagement. These modes were distinguished by both the timing and manner of AI incorporation relative to the designer's conceptual stances: early adoption before establishing an interpretive position and strategic integration following conceptual definition. Qualitative analysis further highlights AI's role as an efficient catalyst for early exploration, while emphasizing the enduring necessity of human judgment, reflection, and expertise. Based on these findings, the study suggests future strategies to facilitate more effective integration of AI into the communication design process.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been touted as a means of providing inspiration in the early phases of the design process. However, it is not known whether this would help or hurt the finished design and the user experience. It could be that looking at AI-generated designs for inspiration could be beneficial for people who struggle to create visual imagery, as evidenced using the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ2). The aim of this study was to compare the quality, accuracy, task time, and user experience of nonprofessionals when asked to create wireframe prototypes with or without access to AI-generated samples. Results showed that AI samples provided some inspiration, but people who were shown sample AI designs reported lower user experience scores for the wireframing design process. The presence of AI-generated inspiration attenuated the association between people's VVIQ2 scores and user experience. The AI-generated inspiration did not affect the design time or accuracy (meeting specifications) for the prototypes, but there were contrasting findings with regards to quality. The results suggest that AI-generated inspiration must be used with caution and further research is needed to establish when and for whom it may provide benefits.
Collaboration with various stakeholders has become vitally important in new product development. However, traditional codesign methods can be challenging when access to external participants is restricted. This study proposes and evaluates a virtual environment for co-designing quality improvements for childcare workers, using a social virtual reality (VR) platform integrated with photogrammetric scans of places of practice. Co-design workshops were conducted with eight childcare workers in Japan using a commercial social VR platform. Workshop discussions, outcomes, and participants' perceptions were analyzed. The results indicated that the virtual environment facilitated a high level of perceived presence, enabling participants to generate ideas and address challenges. Participant interviews highlighted that the virtual environment helped overcome fixation on existing settings by presenting an empty, photogrammetrically scanned room with furniture removed, thereby enhancing the codesign process through three-dimensional (3D) prototyping. Challenges, including control difficulties and cybersickness were noted. This study highlights the potential of social VR platforms and photogrammetric scans for co-design in Early Childhood Education and Care contexts, with findings that may also be applicable to other contexts.
Analogy helps designers understand complex design problems and develop potential solutions. Two types of analogies can be employed: internally triggered analogies, which are drawn from a designer's personal knowledge and experience, and externally triggered analogies, which are inspired by external stimuli. This study explores the effects of external and internal sources, their contribution to idea generation, and their relationship with the designer's experience level. Design protocols were conducted with eight advanced and eight novice design students. No differences were found between novice and advanced participants in the number of new externally or internally triggered analogies they generated. However, the protocols revealed that advanced participants interpreted external stimuli more effectively within the design context and established deeper connections, whereas novice participants tended to rely on more superficial similarities. Across both groups, higher levels of idea generation were observed in protocols with more analogies. This finding confirms the existing literature's claim that analogies contribute to idea generation. Furthermore, the nature of the ideas generated differed by experience level. Advanced students produced more unrelated and diverse ideas, whereas novices generated more closely related ideas.
As creative design enhances a product's visual appeal and uniqueness, companies actively leverage product design creativity to maintain a competitive advantage. Designers often rely on prototypes to understand user assessments during new product development; however, misjudging these assessments can hinder the creation of successful products. A persistent discrepancy exists between designers' and users' assessments of product design creativity, primarily due to differences in cognitive processing. Drawing on design award outcomes, this study investigates the cognitive processes that lead users to align their assessments with designers' evaluations of creative designs. The experiments utilized wall clocks and chairs as stimuli because users regard design as a critical factor in choosing these products. Under complex conditions, this study found that individuals in the unconscious thought groups are significantly more likely to evaluate and select creative designs as attractive compared to those in the conscious thought groups. Product development teams should consider the role of unconscious thought on user responses to creative design.
In theory, Interactive Genetic Algorithms (IGAs) offer a unique opportunity to integrate human intuition and subjective judgment with algorithmic optimization, heightening creative potential in architectural design. However, despite claims linking IGAs to creativity, the relationship between the two has not been empirically tested. This research has two aims. First, to determine if, relative to the performance of a non-interactive genetic algorithm (GA), designers perceive IGAs as enhancing their level of engagement and alignment with their subjective aims. Second, to determine if, on average, IGAs support the production of more novel designs than GAs. To respond, this research reports the results of a two-part empirical study comparing designers' and assessors' perceptions of contextual novelty in morphologies produced using GAs and IGAs. The designers (n = 26) undertook a series of four design experiments and completed a post-experiment survey/interview about novelty and subjective engagement levels in their works. Their designs (n = 104) were independently evaluated by a panel of expert assessors (n = 68). The results compare designers' and assessors' perceptions of creativity indicators. The results, which suggest that interaction may contribute to generating novel design outcomes and support creative exploration, also reveal differences in perspectives and biases affecting design evaluations.
Today, it is widely recognized that design and creativity are critical to addressing economic, social, and environmental challenges, and infusing them into engineering education is imperative. The consensus emerging from the vast literature on design and creativity in engineering education is that it should start early, involve holistic, theoretically grounded approaches, and identify effective pathways for different contexts. In parallel, the advances in design theory have helped distinguish design creativity from other forms of creativity in terms of knowledge, flexibility, and generativity. However, cultivating design creativity among first-year engineering students is a significant challenge. This paper draws on lessons from 4 years of design-based research on implementing a novel foundation course for first-year students at an Indian technical institution to make three contributions. First, it argues that education for design creativity needs a process-focused and relational perspective. Second, it points out that cultivating Tolerance for Ambiguity (TFA) must be the foundational focus to prepare first-year engineering students for design creativity. Third, it presents a socio-material framework for educators to design learning experiences that facilitate the emergence of TFA, allowing students to hold the tension of the design process without retreating into rigid patterns.
Divergent and convergent thinking are critical in engineering design's concept generation and selection stages. Distinct cognitive mechanisms influence these processes; while impulsive thought enhances divergent thinking, convergent thinking requires evaluative executive control. Prior research suggests that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may influence impulse inhibition and executive control, which could, in turn, influence divergent and convergent thinking performance. However, little research has investigated the impact of ADHD on performance outcomes during divergent and convergent design and non-design tasks. To address this gap, we conducted a causal-comparative study with participants with (n = 9) and without ADHD (n = 20). We compared the outcomes of convergent and divergent design and non-design tasks, based on the fluency, novelty, flexibility, and quality of the outcomes. Our findings reveal that participants with ADHD generated more novel ideas but fewer high-quality ideas. However, despite this discrepancy, they selected ideas of high novelty and quality. We also find that designers' performance in non-design creativity-related tasks may not always represent their performance in design tasks. Despite challenges posed by ADHD, these findings demonstrate its positive effects on creativity and call into question the solely negative representation of neurodevelopmental disorders within educational settings.
Digitally mediated design mediums have revolutionized product design, but their cognitive impact during early concept design stages remains unclear. This study employs cognitive load theory (CLT) and constraint-driven cognition to examine how traditional (TD) and digitally mediated (DM) mediums influence cognitive load, problem-solving, and design outcomes. A quasi-experimental study with 16 design students, divided into TD and DM groups, used two distinct design tasks. Results revealed three key findings. First, the DM medium imposed a significantly higher extraneous cognitive load due to attentional fragmentation and interface management, consuming working memory resources critical for creative synthesis. Second, a fundamental strategic divergence emerged: the TD group engaged in problem-driven cognition through material constraints, yielding higher conceptual novelty (63% vs. 25%) and five times more sustainability considerations. The DM group used solution-driven strategies, leading to more derived outcomes. Third, the cognitive impact was task-dependent; digital tools reduced intrinsic load for well-defined mechanical tasks but offered no advantage for open-ended aesthetic tasks. This study suggests design mediums function as active cognitive environments, not neutral tools. A reevaluation of design education and practice is essential, promoting digital metacognition, retaining tactile skills, and developing hybrid processes that leverage the distinct cognitive benefits of each medium.
Recent studies emphasize the role of indoor environmental factors in improving cognitive performance, with indoor greenery playing a crucial part. This research examines the impact of physical exposure to natural elements and photographic viewing of greenery on creativity, specifically divergent thinking, through the lens of Attention Restoration Theory (ART). Seventy-eight undergraduate architecture students were randomly assigned to one of three groups: exposure to a green atrium, viewing photographs of the atrium, or sitting in a standard classroom. Creativity was measured using the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), which assesses fluency, originality, elaboration, and resistance to premature closure. The results revealed that both physical contact with greenery and image-based exposure significantly enhanced creativity. Participants exposed to physical greenery achieved the highest scores in originality and fluency, while those viewing photographs of greenery excelled in elaboration. These findings suggest that natural elements, whether physically present or visually represented through images, provide cognitive and psychological benefits that foster creative performance among future architects. This study highlights the value of integrating greenery into educational and professional design environments to promote creativity in educational and professional design environments. Future research should investigate the long-term impact of continuous exposure to natural elements and explore optimal virtual nature stimuli for enhancing creativity-related cognitive functions in architectural practice and education.
Empathy is pivotal for designers in gaining insight into their users' perspectives. However, its multifaceted nature can impede the design process, emphasizing the need for a more structured approach. This research leverages the perspective-taking and embodiment capabilities of Virtual Reality (VR) technology to examine ways to enhance designers' empathy experiences toward users. This review synthesizes multidisciplinary literature from psychology, empathic design, and empathy in VR, to outline how empathy can be facilitated in VR. The outcome of this review is a unique specification that outlines elements embedded in a VR experience constructed to evoke designer empathy toward their users. The specification adopts a broad approach to empathy, valuing more-than-human perspectives, diversity in empathy responses, and a shared knowledge database of empathy outcomes. Future work will integrate the specification into an operational VR environment to empirically evaluate its effectiveness. This research lays the groundwork for evolving empathic design toward post-humanist design solutions that prioritize inclusivity, ecological and social value.
In contexts of low resources and under the specter of socio-ecological challenges, various alternative design approaches have emerged such as Jugaad, Gambiarra, Low-Tech, etc. They are characterized by the ingenuity shown by designers in creating solutions under constraints. However, the capacity for ingenuity in this context has not yet been studied and this work proposes a first step to characterize it. The focus is on one design approach: The Low-Tech approach. Two hypotheses are proposed to characterize the ingenuity of Low-Tech designers. First, unlike conventional design contexts, Low-Tech designers use self-imposed ethical constraints during the design process. Second, in the way they operate, Low-Tech designers are closer to the logic of the << bricoleur >> than to the logic of the engineer. A mixed method approach was used, involving quantitative data to identify the relevant phenomenon (large-scale questionnaire), followed by qualitative data to better grasp its complexity (semi-structured interviews with 10 designers). This research provides a better understanding of the ingenuity demonstrated by Low-Tech designers. Ultimately, the aim is to pass on this ability to conventional designers in the hope that it will lead to a paradigm shift toward a more sustainable one.
Design creativity research increasingly emphasizes the need to bridge diverse disciplinary lenses to understand how innovative ideas emerge and gain shared significance. This paper presents a theoretical and integrative investigation of design as a language that mediates collective cognition in design teams and communities. Drawing on Peirce's triadic semiotic framework, and perspectives from Jung's archetypes, L & eacute;vy-Bruhl's collective representations, Hutchins' distributed cognition, and Escobar's pluriversal design, we consolidate and extend existing discussions by reconceptualizing design as shared meaning-making rather than solely problem-solving. The research problem explores how design artifacts function as cultural symbols that enable co-creation and collective understanding. We adopt a philosophical and literature-based methodology, reviewing key contributions in design cognition and creativity, then integrating semiotic theory to propose a conceptual framework. The originality of this work lies not in claiming a wholly new paradigm, but in articulating a semiotic-theoretical foundation that makes the mechanisms of shared cognition explicit across disciplinary perspectives. Our results show how design artifacts trigger interpretive processes that support group creativity. The discussion suggests design creativity is not only individual cognition but also a distributed, culturally situated phenomenon. We highlight implications for co-design and education, advocating approaches that foreground shared symbolic languages in collaborative creativity.
In recent times, aesthetics has been one of the most critical factors during the product development phase influencing the success of many organizations. However, many factors, measurement ways, and methods for aesthetics make it challenging for industries to consider an appropriate measurement way, constituents feature, and method for providing support/help for enchaining the product's aesthetics. In this work, we first synthesize a standard definition of aesthetics in philosophy, proposed by different authors in various literature. Using this definition, we identify the core constituents or features which were related to the aesthetics in engineering and develop an engineering aesthetics definition. This study can help in identifying, understanding, and quantifying the engineering aesthetics definition. Using this description, we define engineering aesthetics metrics that could be used to evaluate human aesthetics, factors influencing aesthetics, and techniques for improving aesthetics. This study demonstrates that a corporation can choose a particular set of tests and techniques based on how much attention is paid to the key engineering aesthetics characteristics that are derived from the common definition.
This study examines the influence of architectural examples on team design behavior. Fifteen teams of female master's-level architecture students completed two design tasks under varying conditions, with their processes analyzed using the Function-Behavior-Structure (FBS) ontology. The investigation focused on changes in problem-solution and reflection on design forms - both critical to creative design - as well as shifts in individual and collaborative behaviors over time. Results showed that exposure to an architectural example redirected emphasis toward interpreting design forms and generating solutions. The example notably affected individual behaviors by boosting solution generation and reflection on design ideas, while fostering greater collaboration in form generation. Temporal analysis revealed that shifts in problem framing and solution generation were more evident in the first half of the sessions, with collaboration mainly centered on problem framing. The evolution of design behavior across conditions, especially in idea generation and reflection, aligned more closely with collaborative patterns than individual ones. Overall, interacting with examples balanced the distribution of design behaviors, which may be essential for fostering creativity in the design process. These findings illuminate how and when design behavior evolves through example interaction, underscoring the need for further research on its role in design ideation.
As the need for sustainable designs grows, there are ongoing efforts to integrate environmental considerations into engineering design. Creative stimuli could encourage sustainable ideas in concept generation, evaluation, and selection. External evaluations regulate designers' motivation, and consequently, the outcomes of their creative processes. However, little research has investigated the effects of the design goals on the creativity and sustainability of designers' ideas. We investigated this research gap through an experimental study with novice designers. We compared the ideas generated by designers when given a design problem with either a creativity- or sustainability-focused design goal. Our results indicate that the design goal neither influenced the creativity nor the environmental sustainability of the designers' ideas. However, ideas generated by designers who received the sustainability-focused design goal showed more positive and significant correlations between creativity and sustainability. The temporal precedence of providing the design goal before idea generation provides evidence that sustainability-focused design goals could encourage the better-integrated application of creativity and sustainability in idea generation. Moreover, while creative stimuli would encourage sustainable design, a focus on creativity may overshadow the emphasis on sustainability in the design process. Therefore, designers and design educators must be careful not to over-emphasize creativity in sustainable design.
With the popularization of generative AI, its application in fashion design has become a heavily explored area. However, despite this trend, existing studies of AI applications in fashion design have predominantly concentrated on addressing style attributes, and given less attention toward textile attributes and real-world practical implications. This indicates an opportunity to explore the practical industry application of generative AI specifically toward the textile design component of the fashion design process. This study aims fill this gap by setting out to empirically evaluate the potential value of using generative AI to create textile designs in the fashion design process. It addresses this objective by conducting a series of qualitative semi-structured interviews with 10 fashion industry professionals. Through thematic analysis of the interviews, this study uncovers the potential advantages and obstacles associated with implementing generative AI for textile design in the fashion industry. The outcome of this study sheds light on the potential benefits and barriers of integrating generative AI as a creative tool to facilitate textile design in the fashion design process.
