Understanding problem structure as heuristic formation in design

At least two main strands can be distinguished in the design theory literature: that design is a knowledge-based process; and that design is a learning process. In this paper we attempt to relate these two views of design by showing that learning within and between design problems is a necessary consequence of a knowledge-based view of design. Drawing on work in artiicial intelligence, we develop a model of design as a knowledge-based learning process based on the successive reenement of a body of core heuristics and embed this model within the abduction-deduction-induction framework proposed by March (1976).