The subject will provide students with a working knowledge of at least three classes of design, decision-making and problem-solving approaches used in planning for future environments.

Diverse approaches will be studied as three-week topic groups within the subject in workshops. Topic groups may discuss projects in architectural, landscape architectural, urban design or engineering studio and other like projects so as to provide an enhanced understanding of design, decision-making and problem-solving – value-adding to concurrent and later studies in such subjects and extending attitudes to and skills in dealing with design.

Topic groups covering design issues related to most disciplines in the degree will give students the opportunity to obtain a broader perspective on the design, problem-solving and planning fields and their typical design working methods.

The particular topic groups available in any semester will reflect the availability of staff with specialist knowledge.

On the successful completion of this subject, students will be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge of and capability with various elementary generative, exploratory and evaluative design methods
• Demonstrate development of personal preferences for various design techniques
• Demonstrate development of their own suite of design methods for generating design ideas and problem-solving
• Argue cases for their chosen design procedures and the outcomes of their use