ABSTRACT
Is designing hermeneutical?1 It is commonly supposed that design activity can
be described, codified and explained in terms of an algorithmic logic model
derived from language theory. The model, exemplified in the work of Stiny,
Knight, Mitchell, Kalay and Coyne et al., has been the basis of much research
in architectural design methodology and CAD.2 Mitchell gives an elegant
description of the model.3 With reference to nineteenth-century formal-
pictorial positivism, and the twentieth-century logical positivism of Carnap,
he asserts that design can be described in words that make up a critical
language and such word descriptions can be formalised using the notation of
first-order predicate calculus. Design worlds, he says, consist of ‘graphic
tokens which, like words, can be manipulated according to certain
grammatical rules’. He sees design processes ‘as computations in design
worlds with the objective of satisfying predicates of form and function stated
in a critical language’.4 Mitchell specifies that there are three main parts to
this model:
First … the relationship of criticism to design may be understood
as a matter of truth-functional semantics of a critical language in
a design world. Second … design worlds may be specified by
formal grammars. Third … the rules of such grammars encode
knowledge of how to put together buildings that function
adequately. Thus the relation of form to function is strongly
mediated by the syntactic and semantic rules under which a
designer operates.5
