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Design Theory pp 125–185Cite as

Designing in an Innovative Design Regime—Introduction to C-K Design Theory

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Abstract

Innovation in the 20th century was not just a singular event, but was continuous, incremental, robust—powerful. It was intentional, organized, manageable and controllable. The aim of innovation in the 21st century is to maintain the same constancy and the same power, while at the same time being radical, disruptive and creative. Stable dominant design s built the generative bureaucracies of the 20th century; in the 21st century, new design organizations are aiming to sweep aside, break and continuously regenerate the rules.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In theory, a “space” is a collection of propositions; spaces are characterized by the nature of the logical status of their propositions and by the nature of their mutual relationships.

  2. 2.

    It is possible to retrieve, in design theory, the usual idea of partition in mathematics, we always need to introduce an “other” category and check that the intersections between the various alternatives are indeed empty.

  3. 3.

    Filters are standard structures in set theory. A filter F is a set of conditions Q satisfying the following properties: it is non-empty, it is “upward-closed” (if p < q and p is in F then q is in F) and it is consistent (if p, q are in F, then there exists an s in F such that s < p and s < q).

  4. 4.

    Actually, G is not in M the moment Q satisfies the “splitting condition”: for any constraint p, there are always two conditions q and \( {\textit{q}}^{\prime } \) which refine it and which are incompatible (incompatible means that there will be no condition s that will refine q and \( {\textit{q}}^{\prime } \) “further on”). Proof: (see (Jech 2002, Exercise 14.6, p. 223): suppose that G is in M and assume D = Q\G. For any p in Q, the splitting condition means that there exist q and \( {\textit{q}}^{\prime } \) that refine p and which are incompatible; hence one at least is not in G and therefore is in D. Hence any condition in Q is refined by a constraint on D, and so D is dense. So G est generic and must therefore intersect D. Whence the contradiction. (see also Le Masson et al. 2016). For longer and more detailed explanations see Sect. 5.2.2.1, 199

  5. 5.

    For the entire dense subset D in C space, there is a refinement of Ck that is in D. Ck is also in K (the first conjunction) hence any refinement of Ck is in K and not in C, hence the refinement of Ck is Ck itself. Hence Ck is in D. Hence Ck does indeed intersect all the dense parts.

  6. 6.

    The temptation might be to “select” the favorable C0-K0 configurations. However, what would be the criteria for such a selection, to the extent that the value is precisely an expected result of the process? This is why the issue is rather, to control the exploration.

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  1. MINES ParisTech—PSL Research University, Paris, France

    Pascal Le Masson, Benoit Weil & Armand Hatchuel

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  1. Pascal Le Masson
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Le Masson, P., Weil, B., Hatchuel, A. (2017). Designing in an Innovative Design Regime—Introduction to C-K Design Theory. In: Design Theory. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50277-9_4

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