What is Design?

• The word ‘Design’ has a broad connotation:
  
  – According to Collins - Cobuild Dictionary while designing a building, machine or garment we
  ‘plan it and make a detailed drawing of it’ such that the object can be built based on it. In fact, in Italian, the word design refers to ‘la progettazione’ which refers to the planning.
  
  – In engineering, ‘Design’ involves not only detailed planning but also it begins with pulling together ‘new ideas’ based on existing materials and technology and develop a new system.
  
  – The closest word to ‘Design’ in engineering Context is ‘Synthesis’
  
  
  • To give you an example, let’s say we want to design an Air-craft
  
  – You need to first decompose the project into manageable smaller systems: like: design of
  the fuselage, design of wings and aerodynamic surface-profile, design of the engine, design
  of landing and take-off systems etc.
  
  – Each system will have many sub-systems, for example, the design of fuselage would involve the design of covering shells, the lateral and longitudinal stiffeners, the windows and the seats.
  
  – You can innovate while designing any of these sub-systems: this could be in terms of new materials – say, use of a new polymeric foam material which can change it’s softness or compliance based on the pressure applied to it. It can be in terms of new technology - you may think of a new technology to move the seat inclination.
  
  • The detailed design of every component involves ‘Analysis’. This involves the use of different computational tools and mathematical models. Most of the other engineering courses that you are studying are designed to help you in the process of ‘Analysis’
  
  • ‘Design’ involves ‘Creativity’-something which according to the designer has not existed before, ‘Complexity’-you need to deal with a variety of processes and parameters and ‘Choice’- out of many solutions you need to make a choice at every step and compromise on certain aspects.