A formalism for problem restructuring and resolution in design

It is no longer unusual to find automated systems as partners in the architectural design process. Most, if not all, of these systems are limited to solving well-structured problems efficiently and accurately. The use of these systems relies on manual decomposition of complex problems into more limited, well-defined ones and the subsequent recomposition of the solutions into comprehensive ones. In this paper a formal representation is developed for the process of problem structuring to enable decomposition and recomposition of architectural problems. This consists of a heuristic method for manipulating the parameters of a general purpose generate-and-test mechanism which is capable of solving well-defined problems.