Springer Design Computing and Cognition '08: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Design Computing and Cognition

The importance of research and education in design continues to grow. For example, government agencies are gradually increasing funding of design research, and increasing numbers of engineering schools are revising their curricula to emphasize design. This is because of an increasing realization that design is part of the wealth creation of a nation and needs to be better understood and taught. The continuing globalization of industry and trade has required nations to re-examine where their core contributions lie if not in production efficiency. Design is a precursor to manufacturing for phy- cal objects and is the precursor to implementation for virtual objects. At the same time, the need for sustainable development is requiring design of new products and processes, and feeding a movement towards design - novations and inventions. There are now three sources for design research: design computing, design cognition and human-centered information technology. The foun- tions for much of design computing remains artificial intelligence with its focus on ways of representation and on processes that support simulation and generation. Artificial intelligence continues to provide an environm- tally rich paradigm within which design research based on computational constructions can be carried out. Design cognition is founded on concepts from cognitive science, an even newer area than artificial intelligence. It provides tools and methods to study human designers in both laboratory and practice settings. From the Back Cover This is the third volume of the new conference series Design Computing and Cognition (DCC) that takes over from and subsumes the successful series Artificial Intelligence in Design (AID) published by Kluwer (now Springer) since 1992. The AID volumes have become standard reference texts for the field. It is expected that the DCC volumes will perform the same role. Design Computing and Cognition’04 and Design Computing and Cognition’06 both edited by John S Gero, were published by Springer. This new biennial conference series provides an international forum for the presentation and discussion of state-of-the-art and cutting-edge design research. The conference proceedings will form a continuing archive of design computing and cognition research. Design is a fundamentally important topic in disciplines ranging from the more commonly associated fields of architecture and engineering to emerging areas in the social sciences and life sciences. Design is the key to economic competitiveness and the fundamental precursor to objects - both physical and virtual - and services. The conference theme of design computing and cognition recognizes not only the essential relationship between human cognitive processes as models of computation but also how models of computation inspire conceptual realizations of human cognition. A CD-rom is included. About the Author JOHN GERO is a Research Professor at the Krasnow Institute of Advanced Study and at the Volgenau School of Information Technology and Engineering, George Mason University and a Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Formerly he was Professor of Design Science and Co-Director of the Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition, at the University of Sydney. He is the author or editor of 43 books and over 550 papers in the fields of design science, design computing, artificial intelligence, computer-aided design, design cognition and cognitive science. He has been a Visiting Professor of Architecture, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science or Cognitive Science at MIT, UC-Berkeley, UCLA, Columbia and CMU in the USA, at Strathclyde and Loughborough in the UK, at INSA-Lyon and Provence in France and at EPFL-Lausanne in Switzerland. His former doctoral students are professors in the USA, UK, Australia, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. He has been the recipient of many e