Selecting the parameters of DesigningHannes Meyer, addressing the Bauhaus in February 1928,

outlined his thesis on building in the following manner:

All things in this world are a product of formula
All these things are therefore, not works of art:
All art is composition, hence unsuited to achieve goals.
All life is function and therefore unartistic.
The idea of the composition of a harbour is hilarious!
But how is a town plan designed? Or a plan of a dwelling?
Composition or function? Art or life????
(meyer 1928, wingler 1969,p.153)
This stanza contains a critique of what was perceived to be the
prevailing practice namely architecture as art, art as
impractical and not of this world. It also contains statements
concerning the opportunities for otherwise addressing the issue
of building and architecture by way of function. Furthermore the
statements locate the problem as being a fundamental
question about how to design and build.
Beneath the surface irregularities of designers modes of
operations, common criterias which handle the information
generated can be identified. Furthermore, theoretical
developments in cognitive based interpretations of creative
problem solving have provided us with tools for analysing such
procedures. In spite of variation these interpretations all seek to
explain creative problem solving under the condition of
bounded rationality that are characteristic of design. Here
bounded rationality refers to the concept that human problem
solvers are rarely in a position to identify all possible solution to
the problem at hand and therefore settle for choices that seem
to satisfy the required solution properties of a problem, as they

see them at the time. Generally they make decisions that might
otherwise be seen as suboptimal. Or what Simon refers to as
satisfying. This condition certainly holds for most design
exercises.
One way of describing the kinds of heuristics that are employed
to constrain problem spaces in architecture and urban design is
with reference to the type of information that they provide. At
least five classes of heuristics can be distinguished, in the guise
of common types of analogy, solution images, and form
giving rules. They are as follows:

Anthropometric analogy
Literal analogy
Environmental relations
Typologies
Formal language