Design Creativity 2010 part 10. What is ‘design creativity’? It is impossible to answer this question without considering why human beings can – and do – ‘design’. Design creativity is instrumental in not only addressing social problems faced across the world, but also evoking an innate appreciation for beauty and a sense of personal contentment. | Towards a New Theory for Design Activity Reasoning Denis Choulier University of Technology Belfort Montbéliard France Abstract. After a short presentation of a model for design activity the paper presents the first definitions axioms and theorems of an explicative theory of design reasoning. The first axiom states that design uses some classical deductive reasoning but restricts it to the determination of real parameters resulting from design parameters and also from design rules. The second axiom proposes to consider design as an activity carried out by both a designer and three other actors roles a legislator an evaluator and a prescriber. Each of these roles has a partial vision of the artefact knowledge can modify some but not all parameters can be requested to act or react can freely make propositions and warrants part of the proposition. The concept of emergence is dealt with in theorems. This proposition of a new theory seams compatible with current knowledge of engineering design and its possible utility is discussed. Keywords Conceptual design theory design activity design cognition emergence 1 Introduction The objective of any work in the field of design comprehension is to give account for the activity reasoning and design process. This can be done by reports of observations proposals of descriptive concepts models or at best by the statement of a theory. Giving an account for design activity first appears difficult due to its extreme complexity Morin 2002 . The main indicator is the absence of a unified or single theory which is able to explain design synthesis Tomiyama 2007 or design reasoning in general. Current research in the field shows fundamentally different approaches with different languages and concepts. As other works this one must state its assumptions a vision of design activity that chooses to discuss only part of it but without neglecting other visions. Therefore some aspects of design will be temporarily put aside. For instance .
