Designing is one of the most significant of human acts. Surprisingly, given that designing has been occurring for many millenia, our understanding of the processes of designing is remarkably limited. Recently, design methods have been formalised not as humano-centred processes but as processes capable of computer implementation with the goal of augmenting human designers. This volume contains contributions which cover design methods based on evolutionary systems, generative processes, evaluation methods and analysis methods. It presents the state of the art in formal design methods for computer aided design.

One Evolutionary Methods in Design.- 1 Formalising design exploration as co-evolution: a combined gene approach.- 2 Evolving building blocks for design using genetic engineering: a formal approach.- 3 DISCUSSION: Evolutionary methods in design.- Two Generative and Search Methods in Design.- 4 Modified shape annealing for optimally-directed generation: initial results.- 5 Incorporating heuristics and a meta-architecture in a genetic algorithm for harness design.- 6 DISCUSSION: Generative and search methods in design.- Three Performance Evaluation Methods in Design.- 7 A performance-based paradigm of design.- 8 A formal method for assessing product performance at the conceptual stage of the design process.- 9 On a symbolic CAD-front-end for design evaluation based on the Pi-theorem.- 10 DISCUSSION: Performance evaluation methods in design.- Four Formal Support Methods in Design.- 11 Formal concept analysis in design.- 12 Supporting the design process by an integrated knowledge based design system.- 13 DISCUSSION: Formal support methods in design.- Five Design Process Methods.- 14 A logical theory of design.- 15 Representing the collaborative design process: a product model-oriented approach.- 16 DISCUSSION: Design process methods.- Closing Discussion.- Advances in formal design methods for computer-aided design.- Author Index.