A year and a half ago I came across a concept that changed the way I approach any new design project.
Born in 1936 and with over 20 books to his name, Christopher Alexander was an architect and design theorist who spent his life making sense of the design process. In the threads of his writing I encountered the idea of a generative design approach.
Ever since encountering it I have wrestled with understanding and applying it in my own work. After reading (and re reading multiple times) Alexander’s writings and attempting to consistently apply it, this article is my attempt to clarify the concept.
Generative vs closed design
Designs that are generative allow for future improvements and additions. This is in contrast to closed designs. A closed design narrowly solves the immediate problem. Any improvements to a closed design often mean starting over.
One of my favorite examples from Christopher Alexander is that of balconies.
Alexander states that “Balconies and porches which are less than six feet deep are hardly ever used.” If you design a balcony in this manner it will lead to a closed design that will not allow anything further to happen. While you technically did design a balcony, you have painted yourself into a corner. If you wanted to then upgrade the space since you did not use it, you’d have to start over entirely at great cost.
In contrast if you design a balcony that is more than 6 feet deep you will create a generative design. A design of this manner opens up an entire range of possibilities of what can be done in the space.
You want to design in a way that produces life. To design in a way that allows adaptations and improvements well into the future.
Decisions that define a design
The right early choices shape the whole design. Find and start with decisions that create the most impact.
To highlight this principle Greg Bryant has talked in the past about a coffee shop that used to exist in Palo Alto California called University Cafe.
It had a wonderful ambiance as the large indoor seating area was able to spill out onto the street due to a set of tall fan fold doors at the front.
To make this possible, when the cafe owners bought and redesigned the space they would have had to prioritize this as it was not originally designed that way.
In the words of Greg Bryant, “They realized how important it was for a cafe to be able to spill out on a street enough to say, we’ve got to spend half our budget on making this possible. They had to make the case for that”.
Before the owners put energy and time into picking tables and dishes and a host of other things needed for a cafe, they first put in a tremendous amount of beam work to support the folding door design.
The right early choices shape the whole design. Find and start with decisions that create the most impact.
How to get started (create a pattern language)
While Christopher Alexander primarily applied his concepts to architecture, they are applicable across industries and disciplines. I have applied a generative design approach to product design projects, large content creation projects, as well as to developing training programs.
I applied this very approach on my most recent design project. I was tasked with developing a 7 module innovation and entrepreneurship coach training program. The initial request for the training program stemmed from a request from a large enterprise that wanted to equip 15-20 aspiring innovation coaches. This project therefore came with a deadline and firm constraints around a live delivery of the training to these coaches.
However as I started scoping and shaping out this project it felt like a closed design approach to only satisfy these requirements. By taking a generative design approach I realized that there was a way I could tackle this project that would open up a number of opportunities and possibilities.
I realized that we could package the program for async and live delivery options. While the initial brief for this project only required a live training, if we were to build the content in a way that enabled aspiring coaches to go through it async as well it opened a number of doors to us,
- Any content we ran out of time to cover in a live session could be given as homework to go through async
- All the content that was delivered could be easily rewatched and gone through multiple times
- The entire program could be sold to other clients who could go through it without requiring a live delivery of the content
- etc.
*Credit to Jon Friis who guided me to understanding and engaging with Christopher Alexander’s work.
**This entire article is inspired by and informed by the webinars Ryan Singer has led explaining Christopher Alexander’s writings.
***this article is a potential chapter for the book, “Simple by Design”
Leverlo: Simple, practical methodologies 