ABSTRACT
In the rst half of the twentieth century, as human activity in industry grew more and more complex, it became clear that energy invested in the layout of those activities in space and time was important to improving productivity. These observations led ultimately to the emergence of the eld of operations research and its interest in optimization. Combining this interest in studying complex human
use of built space with the war-time interest in decoupling productivity from individual identity, and a general proclivity to a “scienti c way of thinking,” the idea of design methods began to take hold in the post-war era. As designers studied problems and solutions and the collection of standardized procedures believed to produce results increased, the focus within design theory shifted from the creative or inspired designer to the correct process for producing a result. Such thinking is sympathetic to the goal of implementing all or part of design in a computer program.
