A Methodological Comparison of the Processes of Product Design and Architectural Design

Problem Statement:

 In design methodology studies, it has been assumed that designing is a unique cognitive action that is used in various professional fields. The generality of this matter is not rejected, but after nearly seventy years of design methodology studies and relying on common general knowledge of design, we can now address the question: What are the differences in design methods in various fields? And what is the reason for these differences?

Research Question: 

More specifically, this research has limited the research problem to comparing the design method used in product design and architectural design and raised the following question: “What are the differences in design method in the fields of product design and architectural design?” To find the answer, this preliminary question had to be answered: What is the design method in product design and architectural design?

 To find the methodological differences between the process of product design and architectural design. Research Method  According to the criticism that was accomplished in the literature review regarding the problem and experiment method of similar research, this research method is a qualitative case study, and in terms of method, it is an experimental-descriptive one. Experiments and unstructured interviews were conducted to collect information, and the grounded theory method (GTM) was used to refine and classify the information. The theoretical framework of this research is design methodology with the approach of “design cognition”.

 After collecting the data through testing and categorizing it, there have been discussions on the findings that showed seventeen general cases. In conclusion, it can be said that the method in product design is similar to the method in architectural design in some dimensions, but in others, these two groups have evidently different behaviors. In the common aspects, the inherent dimensions and nature of the design can be seen, but in the different aspects, the role of the environment and education is evident.