"Programming is problem seeking. Design is problem solving."
William Peña, Problem Seeking
Before I design anything I want to know what the problem really is.
This page is the system I built for that, one question at a time.
Scroll
01
The whole thing on one page
Start here if you are short on time. Only questions on this page, the answers sit behind each box. Click any box to open it.
gate passed: new project
What
Where
Who
02
Every answer starts as Assumed
Before the questions, one idea that explains how every answer behaves over time.
Assumed
Not known yet. A default I write down and flag, so nobody mistakes it for a fact.
e.g. soil is good enough for two basements
Given
Comes from the client, a document or a survey. Once it is confirmed it does not change.
e.g. plot area from the sale deed
Derived
Calculated by the system or decided by design. Nobody types it in.
e.g. maximum built-up area = plot area x FAR
Assumedclient or survey confirmsGivencalculation, code, designDerived
The problem is fully stated when nothing Assumed is left.
The small counter in the corner keeps score while you scroll.
03
Two halves
Every project I take goes through the same two halves. First I find the problem.
Then I solve it. I try very hard not to mix them up.
Problem seeking
Understand it
Five questions asked in a fixed order. No drawing yet, only questions and honest answers.
Why
What
Where
Who
When
Problem solving
Answer it
One big How. Every answer from the first half gets solved here, through calculation, code and design.
How
The 5W1H method has six questions. I keep the sixth one, How, out of seeking on purpose.
How is design, and design should only start once the problem is clear.
Where this is going
1The architect's process
2Computation on top
3An AI layer
4Architecture that keeps responding
04
Why is a gate, not a question
A client says "we want a building". That is a request. Why turns it into a need,
and then checks if building is really the best way to meet it. Nothing moves until this is passed.
Request
"We want a building."
NeedIs the problem real?
GoalWhat does success look like, as a number?
OptionsRun it differently, reuse, extend or build new?
ViabilityMoney, land, permission, roughly?
ValueIs it worth the cost?
Moves forward to What, Where, Who
Housing for 1,000 families on land that is owned and funded.
Every forward outcome ends in one sentence
We will build / adaptwhat so that goal,
measured by number.
That number comes back much later. It is what scores the design options.
05
What, Where and Who, together
After the gate these three are asked at the same time, because they keep changing each other.
What and Where set the limits. Who decides what "good" means.
What
Building codes everywhere sort buildings by what people do inside. India's NBC and the US IBC match
closely, so I use their use classes. Mixed use is just a mix of classes.
Scale is the harder part. People alone fail as a unit: a nuclear plant is huge and has very few people.
So I measure scale in what the building serves.
This building serves
So it is measured inbeds, seats, students, dwelling unitshospital, school, housing
Under every building I always record two more things: built-up area,
for the FAR check, and occupant load, for fire and exits.
Where
My first try was one tree: country, state, city, plot. It broke the moment I tested a base on Mars,
or a hotel flying over three countries.
So location became five tags that combine freely. Site conditions and regulations both come out of it.
Jurisdiction even picks which rule pack loads.
Try a building
Reality
World
Medium
Mobility
Jurisdiction
Family Rules
Who
What and Where tell me what is possible. Who tells me what is good. The client's priorities become
score weights, and the users' needs become requirements.
The one who pays is not always the one who owns it. A developer pays, then sells.
e.g. a developer's priorities become weights
Profit50%Speed30%Rest20%
Ownership in three questions
How many?One / Shared
Who?Person / Company / Government
How long?Permanent / Time-limited
06
When runs on two clocks
The project clock runs from brief to handover. The building clock starts at handover
and runs until the end of its life. Most briefs only talk about the first one.
Duration
Permanent, seasonal, temporary or a one-time event. Temporary means light and demountable.
Future change
Growth, change of use, and which parts stay fixed and which can change.
End of life
Demolish, reuse, or take apart and recycle. This closes the loop.
The building clock running live after handover is where responsive architecture lives.
That is the long-term goal of this whole system.
07
Five answers, one statement
Everything from the five questions gets compiled into a single problem statement.
Peña calls it the interface: the last thing seeking produces and the first thing solving reads.
WhyGoal
+
What, WhereLimits
+
WhoScores
+
WhenTime
+
Still Assumed0
=
Ready forHow
Everything that started as Assumed. Dashed ones are still open
Every dashed box is a guess. The next two steps exist to close them.
08
HOW
Problem solving is one big How that answers every question above.
It runs in four stages.
1
Feasibility
What is possible?
2
Design
Generate, evaluate, develop.
3
Document
BIM, drawings, GFC.
4
Respond
After handover.
Four families of buildable things
How starts by sorting the project, because each family needs different rules and different geometry.
The Reality and Mobility tags from Where pick the family on their own.
In development
Plot-based
Anything on a plot, governed by FAR, coverage, setbacks and height. Real sites and conceptual ones.
Existing buildings too: reuse, extensions, parasitic additions.
Later
Corridor
Railways, bridges, runways, roads. Built along a line, not a plot.
Later
Mobile
Food trucks, mobile homes, floating or airborne buildings.
Maybe never
Virtual
Buildings that only live on a screen. Metaverse, games, VR.
The small cards are here to show I thought about them, not to promise them.
09
Feasibility: does the need fit the site?
Feasibility sits right on the line between the two halves. It is the last part of seeking
and the first part of solving. The industry already calls it that: RIBA Stage 1.
One engine for every building on a plot, written once
Rule packcity JSON, picked by Jurisdiction
LimitsFAR, coverage, height, setbacks
Envelopeoffset the plot, extrude to the height limit
Fit checkarea needed vs area allowed
Costarea x cost per m2
Typologies plug into it as data: area per unit, cost per m2, programme ratios.
A new typology is a new data file, not a new plugin.
RegulatedReal sites. The city's own rule pack.
BorrowedCompetitions. A chosen city pack, marked Assumed.
UnconstrainedFuture tech, speculative, virtual. No pack, or the platform's.
Example: the client asks for a 500-bed hospital
1 ha plot, 30 m road, FAR 3.75, 80 m² per bed (MPD-2021)
Base FAR32 beds short
37,500 m² / 80 = 468 beds
+ Metro zone bonus (+50%)fits, 203 to spare
56,250 m² / 80 = 703 beds
500 requested
Cost check: waiting for data. The cost per m² values in the hospital module are still empty, so the system does not guess a budget yet.
What the engine warns about
Area mismatch over 10%
Use not permitted
No rule found
Full FAR not possible under the height limit
Need exceeds maximum
Workbench: what actually exists right now
Delhi rule pack JSON v0.1Done
Hospital module JSON v0.1Done
Feasibility engine / web appIn progress
Grasshopper componentPlanned
Forma extensionPlanned
10
It did not start like this
The framework above took many rounds. This is the honest version of how it got smaller and sharper.
01
Five loose categories
I started with five buckets that overlapped everywhere. I compressed them into three: What, Where, Who.
02
Removing overlaps
Functionfolded into Scale
Budgetmoved into Client
FAR, soil, zoningbecame results of Location
Programmemoved to a later stage
Environment, Mobilityreplaced by five location tags
03
Tested against Peña and RIBA
Both showed me what was missing. That is where the Why gate and the When clocks came from.
04
Checked against 5W1H and the Whole Building Design Guide
Nothing important left out. So I stopped adding and kept it simple.
From my notebook while working this out
Crossing things out: Function into Scale, Budget into ClientThe location tree that broke, and the five tagsTwo clocksHand check: 1 ha, 30 m road, 468 beds, 703 with metro
Built on
William Peña and Steven Parshall, Problem Seeking
RIBA Plan of Work 2020
National Building Code of India; International Building Code
N. J. Habraken, Supports (Open Building)
Nicholas Negroponte, Soft Architecture Machines (1975)
The sources are theirs. Putting them together into one working system is the part I am claiming as mine.
What comes next
Each typology gets its own design process
The framework stays the same for everything. The Design stage changes with the typology,
so each one will get its own page with its own plugin and default values.