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Design thinking has become a central issue in contemporary design discourse and rhetoric, and for good reason. With the design thinking practice of world leading design and innovation firm IDEO, and with the application of these principles to successful design education at prestigious d. school, the Institute of Design at Stanford University, and not least with the publication of Change by Design, in which IDEO chief executive Tim Brown elaborates on the firm's ideas about design thinking, ...

The authors state their purpose as to provide a theoretical framework for distinguishing between the procedures of incremental and radical innovation, and provide 3 different ways of treating innovation. They define incremental innovation as improvements within an existing frame, i.e. 'doing it better' while radical innovation involves a change of frame, doing what was not done before; 3 criteria for identifying radical innovations are listed. The 2 drivers of innovation, technology change and meaning change, are studied through the examples of video games and watches. In video games, Nintendo gained market share through new sensor technology for the Wii which opened games to non-experts. Watches, formerly considered jewellery and sold through specialist stores, became an inexpensive and disposable tool when electronic technology developed digital watches; Swatch redefined the meaning of the watch by making it a fashion item which would be changed to match clothing. The authors conclude that human-centred design is good for incremental innovation only, and unlikely to lead to radical innovation, which results from changes in technology or meaning.

The authors describe how a group of design researchers in Helsinki have constructed an interpretive approach to empathic design, which focuses on everyday life experiences. They illustrate with contributions from three key areas: research practices, methods, and topics. Cognitive models see design as a problem-serving process; this does not acknowledge that often the main problem is understanding the nature of the problem to be solved. Empathic design studies how people make sense of emotions, part of a movement towards context-sensitive design. The Helsinki research programme is built round 4 key beliefs: people give meaning to things; because design is used in real life, research must be done in real life; research methods should be visual and tactile, and analysis should explicate meanings for design; and design researchers must explore these meanings using design specific methods.

Examines social innovation as in 3 categories; top-down, bottom-up, and hybrid. Top-down innovation is characterised by being driven by strategic design, and two examples are given: psychiatrist Franco Basaglia's Democratic psychiatry movement; and Carlo Petrini's Slow Food movement. Both recognised a problem and provided the structures and overall vision to enable change. Bottom-up change is driven by the consumers designing their own solutions, examples being the New York Community Gardens, in which residents began to cultivate vacant lots; and Ainonghui in China, a Farmers' Association which recognised that the lack of good, safe food in their city could be corrected by developing a direct connection to local farmers, who also benefited from a reliable market. Hybrid innovations occur where there are more complex interactions between multiple initiatives and are often of larger scale and combine sequences of innovations.

To incorporate exchanger dimensions as a design objective in plate and fin heat exchangers, a variable that must be taken into consideration is the geometry of the finned surfaces to be used. In this work, a methodology to find the surface geometry that will produce the required heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop to achieve the design targets was developed. The geometry of secondary surfaces can be specified by the fin density, which represents the number of fins per unit length. All other geometrical features, as well as the thermo-hydraulic performance, can be derived from this parameter. This work showed the way finned surfaces are engineered employing generalised thermo-hydraulic correlations as a part of a design methodology. It also showed that there was a volume space referred to as volume design region (VDR) where heat duty, pressure drop, and dimensions could simultaneously be met. Such a volume design region was problem- and surface-specific; therefore, its limits were determined by the heat duty, the pressure drop, and the type of finned surface chosen in the design. The application of this methodology to a case study showed that a shell and tube heat exchanger of 227.4 m2, with the appropriate fin density using offset strip-fins, could be replaced by a plate and fin exchanger with any combination of height, width, and length in the ranges of 0–0.58 m, 0–0.58 m, and 0–3.59 m. The approach presented in this work indicated that heat exchanger dimensions could be fixed as a design objective, and they could effectively be achieved through surface design.

Construction of the initial rainwater storage tank is crucial for managing urban first-flush pollution. Initial rainwater storage tank is designed to maximize pollutant capture efficiency while minimizing storage volume requirement. Considering the random nature of rainfall process, a method is proposed for determining the design volume of initial rainwater storage tank with its specific design return period. First, rainfall events were obtained by dividing the original rainfall series, setting the minimum inter-event time (MIET) as the emptying time of storage facilities. The rainfall events for design purpose were selected from the above rainfall events according to three indicators (the initial rainfall amount, maximum rainfall intensity of the specified period, and antecedent dry periods (ADP)). Then the annual multi-event-maxima (AMEM) method was used for the sampling of initial rainfall period on the basis of the selected rainfall events. Second, samples were arranged in descending order and the empirical frequency of the samples was calculated according to the mathematical expectation formula (Weibull formula). Thus, the theoretical probability distribution function was estimated based on Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm and the initial rainfall intensity formula was obtained according to the Horner formula. Finally, for the targeted catchment and the selected return period, the initial rainfall intensity can be calculated setting the initial period equals to overland time of concentration. Afterward, the design rainfall amount (design volume) can be obtained by the initial rainfall intensity, the initial period, initial loss and the catchment area. It was concluded that: (1) A method for the initial rainfall intensity sampling and the initial rainfall intensity formula were proposed for design volume of the initial rainwater storage tank. (2) The return period of the design volume can be taken into consideration in this method. (3) The proposed method is suitable for scenarios of collecting urban first-flush pollutants from small urban catchments.

Discusses the issue of problem-solving in design. The author assesses the theories of Herbert Simon relating to the solution of design problems advanced in his work 'The structure of ill-structured problems' (1973), argues that the weaknesses in Simon's arguments were also carried over into two later discussions of the issue, and considers whether approaching design problems from a broader perspective addresses the weaknesses in Simon's approach with reference to A. Hatchuel's assessment of his work. He concludes by proposing a concept of design that could shed new light on the nature of design and help to address problems within it.

The author addresses the issue of how products and processes of design intersect with publics, using the theoretical framework of John Dewey from 'The Public and Its Problems'. He identifies two design tactics; 'projection' is the representation of possible future consequences, and 'tracing' reveals the underlying structures and assumptions of an issue. He illustrates these design tactics, giving as an example of projection 'Is This Your Future?' a project based on possible outcomes of energy research, by Dunne, Raby and Singh, who developed the theory of Critical Design. Tracing is illustrated by 'Zapped!', a project by the collective Preemptive Media, intended to raise awareness of the uses of Radio Frequency Identification. He suggests that future research should both examine projects which are broader in terms of audience and context, and consider the ethics of directing design processes towards the construction of specific publics.