Design paradigm

Design paradigms are models, archetypes, or quintessential examples of designed solutions to problems. The term "Design paradigm" is used within the design professions, including architecture, industrial design and engineering design, to indicate an archetypal solution. Thus a Swiss Army Knife is a design paradigm illustrating the concept of a single object that changes configuration to address a number of problems. Design paradigms have been introduced in a number of books including Design Paradigms: A Sourcebook for Creative Visualization by Warren Wake, and Design Paradigms by Henry Petroski. Architect Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language is thought to have first popularized the term.

Design paradigms can be used either to describe a design solution, or as an approach to design problem solving. Problem solving occurs through a process of abstraction and characterization of design solutions, with subsequent categorization into problem solving types. The approach is akin to the use of metaphor in language; metaphors are used to help explain concepts that are new or unfamiliar, and to bridge between a problem we understand and a problem we don't. Design paradigms then can be seen as higher order metaphors; as the often three-dimensional distillation of a working relationship between parts, between groups of things, between the known and the unknown. In this sense, a bridge is a paradigm of the connection between the known and the unknown, and the functional equivalent of a physical bridge is consequently used in many fields from computer hardware to musical composition.

The design paradigms concept has proven so powerful in traditional fields of design, that it has inspired a branch of computer science, where computational analogies to design paradigms are commonly called design patterns. Importantly however, in design professions the term "design pattern" usually describes a 2-dimensional structure, whereas the term paradigm (or model) usually imply a higher order, having 3 or more dimensions.