The design process proposed here was pioneered by architect and urban planner Chris Alexander whose doctoral thesis, published as Notes on the Synthesis of Form, created somewhat of a revolution in the design field in the late 1960s.
Now known as "Structured Planning", this and later work such as Alexander's A Pattern Language continues to attract adherents but so far primarily in the design of things physical:
etc.
For all its apparent complexity we admire nature for its simple beauty.
The paradigm behind this design process is based on the notion of "form as a diagram of forces", an expression of "form follows function".
This notion is easily observed in biological forms.
A cell membrane containing fluid surrounded by equal atmospheric pressure resolves into a sphere; closely packed, these cells resolve into hexagonal cross-sections.
The structure of a large quadruped (like a dinosaur) tends to resolve into a double cantilevered structure, the head and tail balancing the stresses on the central frame.
The boundary conditions of these forms economically resolve their internal forces with those extant in the environment, and the resulting equilibrium is a model of pure functionality.
For all its apparent complexity we know this intuitively and admire nature for its simple beauty.
Taking the lesson from the natural world, the design paradigm emphasizes creating forms that have, in the biological sense, "fitness" with its context or environment, hence, a simple, elegant and functional beauty.
In physical design and engineering there are many good examples with analogies in nature. Suspension bridges have the same overall structural form as big dinosaurs. Geodesic structures look like gigantic diatoms and radiolaria because they resolve the same overall distribution of forces.
Some of the forces that good architecture and product design must resolve are psychological and social rather than physical.
For example, given the context of a small house, making it long and thin as opposed to square and squat resolves the needs for privacy against the constraints of a limited budget and space.
In software design many of the forces to be resolved are the constraining limitations of current technology and economics against the psychological requirements of the user: those of purposive behavior, cognition, perception, group interaction, etc.
Software solutions that are elegant and beautiful simply because they work so well.
The design process of Structured Planning described below is based on this paradigm.
It is a method for dealing with the myriad design requirements in large complex open systems in order to achieve the kind of resolution, fitness, and equilibrium that biological forms have, resulting in software solutions that are elegant and beautiful simply because they work so well.