The Nature of Conceptual Design: Interpretations, Mindsets and Models

Maximising reader insights into the theory, models, methods and fundamental reasoning of design, this book addresses design activities in industrial settings, as well as the actors involved. This approach offers readers a new understanding of design activities and related functions, properties and dispositions. Presenting a ‘design mindset’ that seeks to empower students, researchers, and practitioners alike, it features a strong focus on how designers create new concepts to be developed into products, and how they generate new business and satisfy human needs.

Employing a multi-faceted perspective, the book supplies the reader with a comprehensive worldview of design in the form of a proposed model that will empower their activities as student, researcher or practitioner. We draw the reader into the core role of design conceptualisation for society, for the development of industry, for users and buyers of products, and for citizens in relation to public systems. The book also features original contributions related to exploration, conceptualisation and product synthesis.

Exploring both the power and limitations of formal design process models, methods, and tools viewed in the light of human ingenuity and cognition, the book develops a unique design mindset that adds human understanding to the list of methods and tools essential to design. This insight is distilled into useful mindset heuristics included throughout the book.

Mogens Myrup Andreasen, MScMechE, started as a professor of product development at the Technical University of Denmark in 1998, in 2007 he became a Professor Emeritus with a senior contract with DTU. His research fields are design methodology and product development, methods for synthesis, and creation of a theoretical foundation for the teaching and research of design. Special areas of interest are DFX, design coordination, product modeling, application of design methods, product service systems, product structuring and configuration, and design research methodology.
In 1980 he co-founded Workshop Design Konstruktion (WDK), establishing the ICED conferences. He is also a founding member of the Design Society, which evolved from WDK, a member of the advisory board 2000-2011, and now an Honoured Fellow. Further, he is a co-founder and/or committee member and reviewer in several conferences, workshops and research programs, among them DESIGN, NordDesign, TMCE and DFX.
From 1980 he was an organizer of an annual PhD courses on design research, since 1990 in co-operation with Prof. Lucienne Blessing and Prof. Christian Weber in the International Summer School on Engineering Design research SSEDR.

Dr Claus Thorp Hansen, M.Sc. EE, is an Associate Professor of design methodology at the Section of Engineering Design and Product Development, Department of Mechanical Engineering in the Technical University of Denmark. His research interests are conceptualisation, machine system theory and creative problem solving. He is pedagogical coordination of the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Dr Hansen’s publications cover topics like innovative idea work, goal setting, design decision-making and engineering design education. Since 1999 he has been member of the editorial board of the journal Research in Engineering Design (Springer), and he is also member of editorial board of The Journal of Danish Higher Education. Dr Hansen serves as reviewerof 6 international journals, and he is member of scientific conference boards of major international conferences ICED, DESIGN and ICoRD. Dr Hansen is secretary of the Design Society endorsed event NordDesign, a series of biannual conferences on engineering design and product development.

Dr Philip Cash is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Management Engineering in the Technical University of Denmark. He achieved his PhD from the University of Bath in the designer activity. He has been a visiting researcher at the University of Zagreb and is currently involved in the Global Product Development project (www.tim.man.dtu.dk/The-Global-Product-Development-Project) funded by the Danish Industry Foundation. He has also been active in the wider research community, organising a PhD forum on research methods as part of the DESIGN conference series.
Dr Cash has published a number of scientific journal and conference papers, as well as a scientific book chapter. Despite his short publishing career to date he has twice been nominated for paper of the year in the leading design research journal Design Studies. His research interests include human behaviour in design, design activity, and research methods and rigour.