Invited Paper:
,
Style in Design
by Herbert A. Simon
Camegie-Mellon University
Abstract
A style is some one way of doing things,
chosen from a number of alternative ways.
Since design problems generally do not have
unique optimal solutions, style may enter in
choosing any one of many satisfactory solu-
tions. Components of style can arise from
three sources: direct specification of the
final object, the processes used to manufac-
ture it, and the processes used to design it.
This paper examines the dynamic aspects of
style, and particularly those aspects that a-
rise from the design process itself. The anal-
ysis suggests a new interpretation of the es-
thetic significance of functionalism.
The following passage from E. H. Comb-
rich's remarkable book, ART AND ILLUSION (page
21), will terve as my thesis:
"The history of taste and fashion
is the history of preferences, of
various acts of choice between
given alternatives . . . [But] -
an act of choice is only of symp-
tomatic significance, is expres-
sive of something only if we can
really want to treat styles as
symptomatic of something else,
. . . , we cannot do without
some theory of the alternatives."
A Style, in this view, is some one way of
doing things, chosen from a number of alterna-
tive ways. If Frederick Taylor had been cor-
rect in insisting that there is "one right way
of doing anything," there would be an inevita-
ble clash between function and style--we could
exercise stylistic freedom only by sacrificing
function. One purpose of this paper is to
argue that we are not in fact faced with this
particular dilemma--that design problems gen-
erally do not have unique optimal solutions,
hence that we may choose any one of many
satiafactory solutions.
Styles are generally identified by fea-
tures of the objects designed. We may char-
acterize (not very profoundly) the Gothic
style in architecture by its pointed arches,
and the Romanesque style by its round arches. (
Sometimes, however, at one step removed from
the objects themselves, we connect styles in
X-v -v -v -v -__,.
Proceedings of the 2nd Annual.
Design Research Association
Conference, 197TI
objects with the particular manufacturing pro-
cesses that produced then. Thus, observing
different styles of flint arrowheads, we nay
distinguish between those produced by percus-
sion snd those produced by pressure. Or we
nay distinguish pottery made on the wheel
from coiled pottery.
At one further remove from the final ob-
ject, styles may also arise from differences
in the process of design. Buildings designed
primarily from the inside out, are different
from those designed primarily from the outside
in. Thus, components of style can arise from
at least three sources: the direct specifica-
tions of the final object, the nature of the
processes used to manufacture it, and the na-
ture of the processes used to design it. Of
course, the latter two sources--manufacturing
and design processes--also manifest themselves
in features of the final object, but only in-
directly as a consequence of the interplay of
dynamic forces. It is the second rurpose of
this paper to examine.the dynamic aspects of
style, and particularly those aspects that a-
rise from the design process itself.
Satisficing and the One Right Way
There is a proverb to the effect that the
best is enemy of the good. A little reflec-
tion shows that the proverb can be read in two
diametrically opposed ways, and that it is not
clear which reading is intended--or is the
more defensible. By one interpretation, the
proverb means that if we are willing to settle
for the good enough--to satisfice--we will
never attain the best. By the other interpre-
tation, it means that our striving to reach an
unattainable best may prevent us from reaching
an achievable good-enough. It is this latter
interpretation that describes the stern real-
ities of the design process in the world we
know in any world, for that matter, that is
even moderately complex.
Since I have made the satisficing argu-
ment at length elsewhere, I will review it
only briefly here, and then apply it specifical-
ly to the problem of design (1). Host problem
solving can be represented as a tfearch through
large space of possibilities. For real-world
 f rob lens, the spaces are not merely large, but
fmnense, and there is not the slightest chance
for either man 'or computer to search them ex-
haustively for the solution that is absolutely
Best solutions sre therefore only attain-
able in those situations where there exist
apme systematic procedures, or algorithms, for
going more or less directly to the optimum
With pnly a moderate amount of highly selective
pearch, or, in favorable instances, with no
search at all. Thus, to find the local maxima
pf f real'Valued, continuous and differenti-
ate function of a variable defined on a closed
interval, simply execute the algorithm for find-
ing the first derivative of the function, set
the first derivative equal to zero, and solve
fpr (he unknown. TbU the function consists
e>f a npn«-denunerable infinity of points causes
ttp trouble, for only a small finite set of
these is ever examined, and the algorithm leads
VP directly to them.
In ether kinds of problem spaces, the
available algorithms are not powerful enough
to eliminate entirely the need for search, but
re sufficiently selective to reduce search to
tolerable proportions. An important class of
example* are the situations that can be formu-
lated as linear programming problems. The
available algorithms for seeking the optimum
in a linear programming problem-- for example,
the »imp lex algorithm--aearch only certain
boundary points of the space, are guaranteed
to climb monotonically toward the optimum, and
reach that optimum after a finite number of
ftept. Although it is easy to find real-life
problems that demand more computation in a
linear programming formulation than man or com-
puter can provide, a good many problems become
manageable when stated in linear programming
terms.
Where optimizing algorithms are unavail-
able, or are impractical for problems of the
size we muat solve, settling for a satisfactory
folution instead of seeking the best one is
generally an excellent way out. Techniques
for sstisficing are often called "heuristic
programming techniques."
Sttisficing is sometimes dismissed as
obvious snd not very interesting common sense:
"If you can't do the best, do the best you
can." Alternatively, economists sometimes
argue that satiificing is simply optimizing
under constraint on the resources available
for search, The optimizing rule, in this view,
if: Continue searching until the expected Im-
provement in the solution from investment of
sdditional search effort is just worth that
effort; then halt.
Because they overlook two important
points, the arguments from common sense and
economies underestimate the importance of tak-
ing a satisf icing viewpoint. First of all,
when no selective optimizing algorithm is
available, the cost of a search to find the
best tends to increase at least linearly with
the size of the space searched. In contrast,
the cost of a search to find a satisfactory
^solution depends only on the density of dis-
tribution of solutions of varying quality
through the space, and is more or less inde-
pendent of the size of the total space. The
familiar needle-in-haystack problem illus-
trates the point. In a haystack throughout
which needles of varying sharpness 'are dis-
tributed randomly, finding the sharpest needle
requires a search of the entire stack. Finding
needle sharp enough to sew with requires a
search of a pile of hay big enough to contain
one such needle--a pile whose size does not de-
pend at all on the size of the whole stack.
Fqr most practical purposes, the real world is
an infinite haystack, hence a place where we -
are well advised to satisfice.
The second point often ignored by optim-
izers is that, if the general'magnitude of the
available search effort is known in advance,-
then following an optimizing procedure until
the marginal cost of additional search exceeds
the expected gain is not equivalent to employ-
ing the best satisficing procedure. Given
resource limit, there may exist many satis-
ficing procedures that will, on average, find
better solutions than a truncated optimizing
procedure. This proposition can again, of
course, be translated into optimizing terms,
but as a practical matter, it has often been
overlooked by optimizers, who have consequent-
ly Invested too little of their effort In the .
sesrch for powerful heuristic procedures.
Some of us would argue that this has resulted,
in the past two decades, in a serious imbalance
between the amount of research devoted to im-
proving the kit of optimizing tools and the
amount devoted to improving the kit of satls-
ficing tools; and a consequent imbalance in the
kits themselves. But pursuing this point would
take me away from my main topic, which is style.
What has the distinction between satisficing
and optimizing to do with style?
Optimizing techniques generally produce
'unique solutions or small sets of similar solu-
tions. Although one can construct all sorts
of more or less pathological counterexamples
to this generalization, they have little rele-
vance to the real world. Hence, an optimizer
faces no question of style, but simply a ques-
tion of finding the best solution. If we In-
sist on according the optimizer a style, we
can only equate it with an extreme function-
al ism, in which function determines form, ut-
terly and completely. Few designers who sub-
scribe to the functionalist view would feel
comfortable with the doctrine that they exer-
cise no choice and that no questions of style
enter their design. But that is certainly
where an attempt to combine functionalism with
optimizing leads us.
For the satisflcer, the unique solution
Is the exception rather than the rule. Mush-
rooms can be found in many places in the for-
est, snd the time it takes us to fill a sack
 with them nay not depend much on the direction
ve wander. We may feel free, then, to exer-
ciae tome choice of path, and even to intro-
duce additional choice criteria (for example,
the pleasantness of the walk or the avoidance
of wet placet) over and above the pragmatic
one of bringing back a full tack.
There are really two caaea to be dii-
tinguiahed here. In the one caae, two diatinct
aearch paths may be generated by two different
heuriatic procedure! each of which it deaigned
only to find mufhrooma. In the other caae,
two diatinct aearch patha may be generated by
two different heuriatic procedure! becauae on*
of them incorporate! criteria beyond the
basic one of finding mushrooms--or both incor-
. porate auxiliary criteria, but different one!.
In the former caae, the choice of one or the
other of the heuriatic procedure! ia a choict
of atyle; in the latter caae, the choice of
auxiliary criteria ia a choice of atyle. In
both caaei, it ia the -non-uniqueness of aatia-
'factory solutions that permit! us the choice.
Hence, in a world where the beat la the enemy
of the good, there la almost unlimited room
for the expression of preference! in atyle
even for the functionaliat.
Criteria and Constraint!
The requirement! for a design or prob-
lem aolution are usually expressed by some
combination of criteria and constraints. In
a typical linear programming problem, for ex-
ample, the criterion ia a function that ia to
be maximized or minimized, and the constralnta
are bounds on the magnitude of certain of the
variable!: e.g., minimize the cost of the bas-
ket of food (criterion) that containa at least
. 2,000 caloriea (constraint) and not teas than
a', a-, a., .....milligrams of vitamin! and
mineral! 1, 2, 3, .... (constraint!).
Notice that in thia example the diatinc-
tion between criterion and constraint! li not
the diatlnction we commonly make between the
goala pf an action and the aide condition! it
must satisfy. For the goal of buying a baaket
of food ia not to aave money, but to meet
nutritional requirements. Here the goal is a
set of constraints, while a aide condition l!
the- criterion--the minimization of coat. The
distinction in linear programming between
criterion and constraint! ia a technical dia-
tinct ion between the variablea that are to be
aubjected to an optimizing procedure and thoae
that are to be held within bound!. Either may
be goal; either may be aide condition. In the
problem of maximizing the return on an inveat-
ment portfolio, subject to limit! on riak, the
main goal and the criterion function become
identical.
When heuriatic technique! are used for
aatiaficlng, the asymmetry between criteria
and conatrainta disappears. The task i! to
find an object that aatiafiea all of a (po!-
aibly large) aet of constraint!. On the
borderline between optimizing and aati!ficing
lie hybrid procedurea that satisfy a aet of
constraint!, with one or more variables left
undetermined, then optimize some function of
the remaining free variablea. Whether we re-
gard these as optimizing or satiaficing pro-
cedures depends on two things: how severely
the aatiafactlon of the constraints restrict!
the solution! that remain; and whether the
function to be optimized corresponds to a cen-
tral goal of the design or to a relatively un-
important aide condition.
If the constraints do most of the work
of determining the solution, while the optimiz-
ation only modifiea it marginally, we often
apeak of "suboptimizatlon.-" Suboptimizing i!
most profitably viewed aa latiaficing, for
thla view calls our attention to the all-impor-
tant constrainta rather than to the relatively
uninfluential criteria. Suboptimizing reminds
one of the joke about the household in which
the husband made all the important deciaions
(about international affalra) and the wife all
the unimportant onea (about the family budget).
In many auboptimizing procedure!, the con-
straint! make the really important selections.
In. the remainder of this paper, I shall
be concerned with situatlona where the goals
and aide condition! of the design are all ex-
pressed aa constraints to be satiafied. Sym-
metrizing the design requirements in this way
has the further advantage that it allows us to
treat identically both the requirements that
are Imposed by the designer and hia client
and the requlrementa that are imposed by nature.
For example, the compressive strength of con-
crete can be introduced into the design prob-
lem as a constraint of the aame form aa the
minimum dimensions of a room.
Generators and Test!
Having put all constraints on an equal
footing, we now discriminate among them along
a new dimension we distinguish between con-
straints imbedded in generatora and constraint!
expreased by teat!. The simplest paradigm for
a design process contains two subprocesses.
The first of these generates, sequentially,
certain objects that are candidate solutions
or components of solutions. The second proceaa
teats whether a candidate satisfies a set of
constraints. Any object generated that then
aatiafiea the test process is guaranteed to
aatiafy all the design requirements (2).
Most commonly, in a generate-and-teat
proceai the design is assembled component by
component. Each component generated is added
to the previous assembly, and the new struc-
ture then tested. If the test succeed!, the
process continues; if it falls, the new com-
ponent is discarded and another generated.
Here the deaign process involve! not Just a
cycle of generating and testing, but a whole
aequence of such cycles.
The monkey! in the British Museum who
were trying to reproduce the works of Shake-
speare on their typewritera employed the moat
 primitive torn of generate-and-test process,
ainply typing random sequence! of letter* un-
til a sequence* «hould emerge that duplicated
fhakeapeare'a. Generste-and-teat processes of
'practical inter eat proceed more subtly and
Selectively than thla. They are constructed
fp (hat any .object they generate la already
guaranteed to satisfy s certain subset of the
4tfiga requirements.
The distribution of design constrsints
between generators and tests is well illua-
(rated fey theorem-proving programs (3). The
prPPf pf * theorem in some branch of mathemat-
ica is a sequence of well-formed expreaaions,
(I) the final one of which is the theorem, to
be proved, and (2) each one of which either ( )
if directly derivable by definite and simple
eperationa from one or two of the expressions
that precede it in the sequence or (b) it an
axiom Off previously-proved theorem. Consider
now a theorem prover that works backward from
the theorem to expressions from which it can
be derived» and from these expressions to
I ethera, until connection is made with the ax-
|ems and previously-proved theorema. The gen-
erator in such a program is guaranteed to pro*
' duce only well-formed expressions. Moreover,
it if guaranteed that in the tree of expres-
ipns that ia generated, the later members sre
i\\ directly derivable in one or more ways
from earlier members. Hence, all that remains
for the test process is to determine when ex-
prepaions produced by the generator belong to
the axiomp and previously-prrved theorems.
Other divisions of labor between the gen-
trftPr and the test process of a theorem prover
re conceivable. For example, the generator
night produce expressions that are not guaran-
teed tP be well formed, but grammaticality of
theie expressions could be determined by s
tClt» and the ungrammatical ones weeded out.
An analogue to this can be found on certain
«hepp-playing programs that generate moves not
futrantead tp be legal, and then test the moves
for legality if they have other desirable pro-
• pcrtitf.
The division of labor between generators
ni tMtf if pragmatic. It depends in consider-
able measure upon what constraints are easily
embedded in generators and what onea are not.
The theprem-prpver example suggests thst when
the generator ia producing a continually grow-
ing afpetnbly of potential design components,
''iecfl" epnptraints--that is, relations among
neighboring components--are easily incorporated
in generaterp, while more global conatraints
«y hive to be left for tests.
J, Craion S (1970) program for laying out
fleer planf provides another example of a div-
ilien of labor between generators and tests..
. Ihf program employs a planat graph representa-
tion ef the room layout problem, thereby guar-
anteeing that any arrangements generated will
lit in the plane. Satisfaction of apecified
Size constraints for the rooms, however, is
guaranteed by tests spplied to proposed lay-
out*. The generstor, in this case, guarantee*
sstlsfsctlon of certsin topological constraint*;
the tests deal with other topological con-
trslnts and with metrical properties.
The Creation of Design Alternatives
Up to this point, I have made no dis-
tinction between design and sny other kind of
problem-solving sctivity. In ordinary language,
however, we apply the term "design" only to
problem solving that alms at aynthealzlng new
object*. If the problem ia imply to choose
among given set of *lternatives--to choose
the-location or site for plant, aay-we do
not usually call it a design problem, even if
the set of available alternatives is quite
large, or possibly infinite.
The slgorithm for finding the maximum
of function by setting its first derivative
equal to zero select* solution from
non-denumersble infinity of poaaibllitle*.
However Isrge this set of possibilities, It 1*,
in s certain sense, given in advenes by the
definition of the function and the range of
its independent vsriable. If we don't call
the maximizing algorithm a design algorithm
(and we certainly don't), our terminological
decision baa nothing to do with the number of
alternatives, but possibly with their "given-
ness." But what it means for an alternative
to be given requires further discussion,
An architect seeking to produce the room
Isyout for a house would ordinarily be thought
to be engaged in design. But the number of
alternative floor plans that can be drawn on
a sheet of paper Is exactly the same nor-
denumerable infinity the Infinity of the con-
tinuum--as the number of points on a contin-
uous function, neither more nor less. If the
possible solutions of the maximum problem are
given, why not the possible solutions of the
architectural problem?
The difference between these two situ-,
atlons csnnot be divorced from the avail-
ability of solution processes. There are two
reasons, one negative and one poaitive, why
we call the layout problem, but not the max-
imizing problem, a design problem. The nega-
tive reason is that we do not have .a simple
finite algorithm for going directly to a solu-
tion of the layout problem. The poaitive
reaaon is that the processes we do have for
attacking It involve synthesizing the solu-
tion from component decisions that are selec-
tive, cumulative and tentative.
The possible slternatives for solving a
design or synthesis problem sre also given in
c certain sense. Synthesis does not make
things out of whole cloth, but assembles them
from components. What is given In the case of
synthesis are a set of elementary component*
and a grammar defining the admissible ways of
combining components into larger structures.
In the layout problem, the components are pos-
sible walls, each of which can be defined by
the four coordinates of it* two endpoint*.
 (For simplicity, I am denying the architect
the privilege of curving hi* walls t but the
generalization to permit this would not change
the argument.) The baaic grammatical rule it
Chat valla nay not overlap—that the entire get
of walla auat constitute a planar graph.
Why do we think the architect la synthe-
aicing, or even "creating" when he make* the
layout? Because he *olve* hi* problem by mov­
ing through a large combinatorial apace in
which he adda one element after another to hia
deiign—of course, sometime* revising or even
deleting those that are already in it. In thla
reapect, hi* process 1* not different from that
of a chemist who is trying to synthesize a com*
plex molecule having certain desirable proper-
tie* (for example, a broad-band, biodegradable
inaecticide .to replace DDT). To be sure, the
chemist starta with only a finite number of
building blocks--the 92 natural elements, say—
while the architect atarts with a four-parameter
non-denumerable infinity of possible straight
llnea. The chemist, we might think, haa far
fewer alternativea open to him than the archi­
tect.
But we have already aeen that number of
alternatives is a misleading criterion. "Large"
and "small" mean one thing in mathematics, but
something quite different in the empirical
world. For the problem solver, any number of
alternatives is immense (and, for practical
purpose*, equal to any other immense number)
if it is too large to be enumerated and ex-
amined exhaustively within a reasonable time.
In design, 1,000 is an intnense number, for de-
sign* must generally be produced by examination
of fewer than 1,000 alternatives.
The richness of the combinatorial apace in
which the problem solver moves, then! rather
than the number of elementary components he haa
at hia disposal, la the hallmark of design act-
ivity. By virtue of this richness the designer
must search selectively; for among all the im-
menae--and possibly infinite--number of combin-
ations potentially available to him, he can ex-
amine only a tiny number. The designer exer-
cises choice, hence introduces style into hi*
design.
Notice that the problem apace through
which the designer searches is not a space of
designs, but a apace of design components and
partially-completed designs. Even this is a
simplified picture, for the designer may oper-
ate sometimes in the space of design components,
sometimes in one or another abstract planning
apace that represents only certain aspects of
the entire problem. In all eventa, in the
course of the design process very few complete
designs are generated, compared and evaluated
in the typical case, only one. The generator
guarantees that a number of the constrainta
will be satisfied automatically at each atage
of the design, and the tests guarantee that * lem has been obtained it proceeds to gener-
partial designs violating the remaining con-
strainta will be rejected or modified a* the
earch proceed*.
We can illustrate the proceas by refer­
ence again to theorem proving, which ia not
usually thought of aa design, but whose pro­
cesses do not differ from design processes in
any aigniflcant way. There are two way* of
viewing theorem proving. It can be thought of
a* aearch for the theorem through a apace of
theorem*, in which each *tep involve* applica­
tion of the rule* of inference to point* of
the Space previously visited. (This ia a de-
acription of forward search; with a little
generalization, backward aearch can be brought
within the paradigm.) But it can also be
thought of aa a process for generating an ob­
ject called a proof—that 1*, a sequence of
theorems having the propertiea we mentioned
earlier. At each atage In the aearch, one or
more partially completed proof* are augmented
or modified until a proof of the desired theo­
rem haa been found.
Now aelectivity in thi* design process 1*
derived from several *ource*. First, the gen-
erator producea only legitimate proof steps.
Second, the *y*tem incorporate* a number of
intermediate tests thst guide the generation,
by measuring progress toward the desired proof.
For example, the final expression in the par-
tial aequence can be compared with the theorem
to be proved,- and the differencea between them
used to determine the next atep of generation.
(This is the procedure, Incorporated in the
General Problem Solver, known aa means-end*
analyaia.)
Hence, we ahould not conceive of the de-
ign generator as a process that spews out in
a fixed aequence possible designs that are ac-
cepted or rejected by final tests. The gener-
ator ia itself a parametrized procesa whose
output at any given moment 1* determined both
by it* structure and by the information it ob-
tains from it* previous output. The testing
processes include both tests for conformity
with the problem constrainta and tests for
measuring progress toward satisfying thoae
constraint*.
Each of the partially completed designs
generated during search corresponds, of course,
to a whole class of final designs. The testa
that are applied during the design process do
not merely weed out unsatisfactory design*,
but instead, they choose promising classes of
designs for further particularization.
The Emergence of Style
The satisficing process we have been dis-
cussing can be described, *lightly *implified,
aa follow*:
The design program consists of one or more
generators and a number of teat*. When the
program is furnished a se.t of constraints
that ia, a set of criteria for determining
when a satisfactory solution to a design prob-
ate elements for consideration as component*
in the design. After each proposed addition
to the design, two kinds of testa are applied.
 Tests of the first kind determine whether the
proposed addition satisfies certain of the de­
sign constraints—if so, it i« added to the
design. Tests of the second kind inform the
generator whether progress is being made and
what constraints remain unsatisfied, and there­
by modify the next stage of generation.
The relation between the constraints de­
fining a particular design problem and the
design program is not simple. Not all of the
constraints are incorporated in test routines
for, as we have already noted, the generator OBJ
be, and usually will be, so constructed as to
satisfy certain ot the constraints automatical*
ly. Moreover, not all of the tests that are
applied by the program come from the problem
constraints. We need to distinguish, there­
fore, those characteristics of the generator
that simply guarantee satisfaction of design
constraints from its other characteristics-­
let us call them autonomous—which are not
implied by the initial problem requirements.
Similarly, we need to distinguish autonomous
tests from tests that simply apply design
constraints. Both generators and tests of
the design program will generally contain both
problem-determined and autonomous components.
One of the simplest, and most obvious,
autonomous components of a design generator
is the set of processes that determines the
order in which elements will be considered.
Seldom do the specifications of the object to
be designed place restrictions on this order.
Thus, for example, the architect's generator
is free to begin work on a problem from the
outside in or from the inside out. But in a
satisficing process, seeking the first object
that will satisfy s specified set of con­
straints, the order in which possibilities
are examined may have a major influence on
which solution is discovered. Hence, auto­
nomous characteristics of the generator that
determine the order of search are an important
aspect of style.
A second set of autonomous elements in
most design programs are "prefabricated" solu­
tions to subprobleajs that arise repeatedly
*in different contexts. By using such assemb­
lies as components in the design instead of
synthesizing it from simpler elements, the
program is able to operate at a more aggre­
gate level and reduce its search effort.
Since, again, the prefabricated assemblies
are not uniquely determined, they provide •
second source of idiosyncratic style.
The design program may add to the speci-.
fication of a design problem yet another set
of autonomous constraints. If the program
resides in the head of a hunwn designer,
these additional specifications may simply
represent characteristics the designer would
like to see included in the object, over and
above those mentioned in the problem specifica­
tions. It is frequently suspected by the
clients of architects that the constraints
actually applied by the architect's design
program derive much more from the architect's
•tore of criteria than from those provided
by the client. * *
To view the matter in a little different
light, there are of course strong*positive
reasons for incorporating in design programs
both prefabricated assemblies snd autonomous
constraints. The former are a natter of ef­
ficiency—they make design less costly--but
they are more than that. A subproblem solution
that is to be used repeatedly as a component
in the-solution of larger problems can be
brought to a level of high "polish11—that if,
can be designed to severe constraints--beyond
what would be justified if -it were to be used
only in a single design.
Autonomous constraints in design programs
may also be highly desirable features. If the
designer is a professional expert, serving a
lay client, then the client nay want the ex­
pert to take care of all the considerations
that will become important to him in his actual
use of the-object designed, but which he ia un­
able to anticipate in advance.
In conceptualizing a design program that
makes use of prefabricated subproblem solutions
and supplementary autonomous constraints, it is
useful to distinguish between the program
proper (the generators and test processes) and
a memory in which the autonomous supplements
are stored. Only a small subset of the latter
may come into active use in the course of de­
signing any single object. They will be e-
voked by particular situations that arise in
the course of the design, retrieved from memory,
and applied. Obviously, the contents of this
memory will make an important contribution to
the style of the design program having access
to it.
In summary, we can speak of the distinc­
tive style of a.design program because the con­
straints that define design problems for it
are never so limiting as to point to a unique
solution. All of these characteristics of the
program that determine which of the many pos­
sible satisfactory designs will actually be
created define the program's style. Among the
most important of these autonomous, style-
determining characteristics are (1) the pro­
cesses that determine the order of search, (2)
stored prefabricated solutions to recurrent
subproblems, and (3) stored autonomous con­
straints to be added to the explicitly given
problem constraints.
In ordinary discourse, style is predi­
cated both of objects and of persons who create
them. We speak of a building as Gothic in
style, but we also speak of Mozart's style of
music. In the former case, a collection of
objects possessing certain common character­
istics is set off and labelled as belonging to
a particular style. In the later case, the
collection is defined by the design program
from which the objects issued (4).
Mozart, in a celebrated letter, puzzled
about the connection between design process '
 •nd product: "Now, how does it happen, that,
while I am at work, my compositions assume tht
form or the style which characterize Mozart
•nd arc not like anybody else's? Just as it
happens that my nose is big and hooked, Moz­
art's nose and not another man's. I do not
•in at originality and X should be much at a
loss to describe my style. It is quite natural
that people who really have something particu­
lar about them should be different from each
ether on the outside as well as on the inside."
To determine whether an object belongs to
• particular style, we may test whether cer­
tain constraints, obvioua or subtle, apply to
it. If its arches are pointed, we aay, "That's
Gothic," if round, "That's Romanesque." Or
we nay reject the former classification on
discovering that the arches do not bear the
weight of the vault, but hide a steel frame.
Whatever the criteria, obvious or subtle,
tests spplied to the characteristics of the ob­
ject tell us whether or not it belongs to the
style in question.
We determine whether a particular object
was produced by a particular design program in
exactly the same way--by applying tests to
characteristics of the object. One reaaon we
do this is because we ordinarily do not have
direct access to the program, hence can iden­
tify it only by its products. We cannot (yet)
look inside Mozart to determine what it is
about his program that makes his music Moz­
art's. But the cues we detect in the design
to identify its source may also be obvious or
subtle, superficial or essential.
Some painters employ obvious trademarks—
the usually conspicuous X, for example, that
can be found on Stuart Davis's canvases. The
.''trademark is an explicit and conscious symbol
' of the author's identity, almoat a signature.
The tests range from these very obvious ones
to others that are difficult or impossible to
verbalize. As an exercise for the reader, I
propose that he try to write a characteriza­
tion of the paintings of Cezanne that would
permit someone who had never seen one to iden­
tify them.
A more sophisticated approach to charac­
terizing the style of a design program is to
define it by statistical measures. This ap­
proach has been farthest developed in the
identification of literary style from the
Statistics of vocabulary and syntax, and the
identification of music from the statistics of
tonal or chordal sequences (5). The technique
is sometimes successful, and undoubtedly can
be developed further, but in some important
sense we find it artificial. The identifying
statistics are clearly symptoms, not causes.
They are the accidental byproducts of the
working out of the underlying characteristics
of the design program, and we should expect to
find no direct one-to-one relation between the .
statistics and the program characteristics.
One important episode in the history of
modern science illustrates dramatically these
two ways of characterizing style--by features
of the object, end by features of the program
that designed it, respectively. In this case
the designer was Nature. Kepler discovered
s beautifully succinct characterization-of the
style of the planets, by determining that each
moved in sn ellipsoidal orbit, with the Sun
st one focus of the ellipse. But Newton showed
that the style could be characterized even
more fundamentally by a gravitational process
that accelerated each planet toward the Sun
in inverse ratio to the square of its distance.
The style of the process described by Newton
implied the style of the orbits generated by
that process.
Style from the Dynamics of Design
In the remainder of this paper, I should
like to give particular attention to aspects
of style that reveal characteristics of the
design process. In doing this, I shall have
to stray perilously close to realms of esthet­
ics in which I have only amateur status, and
to draw examples from painting, music, and
architecture. If my examples do no more than
irritate professionals into correcting or im­
proving them, they will have served their
purpose. • .
The Kepler-Newton example given above il­
lustrates the central esthetic premise from
which I shall proceed. Kepler found pattern
in the planetary orbits, but Newton disclosed
the deeper pattern by demonstrating that it
was not.a brute fact of Nature, but followed
inexorably from the working of a simple gen­
erator. The Newtonian explanation gave us
the more parsimonious characterization of th'e
pattern.
Functionalism in design offers the same
kind of parsimony. When we notice that some
feature of a design follows from the function
the design is supposed to serve, that feature
no longer requires its own independent con­
straint—its special flat—but derives from
conditions central to the design problem It­
self. Functional design is parsimonious of
constraints, producing objects that are more •
than the additive outcomes of multitudes of
detailed design specifications.
At one time or another, both obedience
to function and simplicity have been erected
into basic esthetic principles. What our
analysis suggests, instead, is that the key
term is parsimony, and that we value function­
al ism and classicism precisely when they dis­
close economy of pattern. Functionalism be­
comes an important source of parsimonious
design precisely because Nature la cleverer
than Man in devising dynamic principles that
have rich sets of consequences for the objects
they generate. Simplicity warns us against
multiplying constraints as a cheap source of
superficisl richness in pattern. It urges us
to omit detail when that detail is arbitrary
and not derivable from constraints or compon­
ents of the design process that are already
preaent and expressed in other waya. It
urges us, also, to be sparing of detail when
 that detail vould make it difficult to per­
ceive the. dynamic source* of pattern.
Let BC leave these general principles be-*f
fore I strain them beyond credibility, and
turn to some examples of how style emerges
from (and can be characterized by) dynamic
features of the design process.
A crude architectural example vas already
suggested earlier in this paper. The feneetrs-
tion of a building can be entered into the de­
sign at an early stage, or it can be postponed
until many aspects of the internal layout have
been determined. If we see a building with a
symmetric facade, we can be reasonably sure
that that facade was generated at an early
point in the deaign. If, on the other hand,
ve see one with many asymmetries, we will con­
jecture with some confidence that these asym­
metries are external expressions of decisions
about how to meet internal requirements.
This does not mean, of course, that asym-
metry cannot be introduced deliberately as one
of the design constraints. A designer can
Introduce any constraint that whimsy or esthe-
tic sensibilities suggest, provided it does
not interact too strongly and contrarily with
the other constraints already present. When
he does so, he generally succeeds in producing
something that the viewer finds "quaint" or
"ornamental." He does not produce a Mont-St-
Michel, whose wonderful forms sre almost by-
products of the demands of site and history,
but which, far from appearing accidental or
adventitious, are integral expressions of those
fundamental demands.
This is not simply another way of saying
that the forms are functional. However, dif-
ficult it is for us to imagine it now, the rock
of Mont-St-Michel might have been" crowned by
many other masses of masonry performing the
same function. Perhaps some of these alterna-
tives would have excited as much wonder over
the years ss the particular one that emerged.
But each of them would have a style reflecting
not just the demands of the site and its use
(identical for all), but also the process for
'generating possible ways of meeting those de-
mands .
Of .course an element of style that a-
rises in this way--from interaction between de-
sign, requirements and design processes--may
become so valued that it is incorporated dir-
ectly into the design constraints. A modern
Cothic or Gothicized church, built on a steel
frame, deliberately satisfies visual require-
ments that in no way follow from other design
constraints or processes, but are simply orna-
mental. The objection to such ornamentation
is not its lack af functionality, but its
failure to communicate something sbout the de-
. sign process.
I will return later to the topic of or-
namentation. Before I do so, I should like to
look to music for other illustrations of the
basic thesis. Music has a complex structure
built on the dimensions of rhythm, melodic
line, harmony, tonsl quality, and others. Goal-
position cannot proceed simultaneously with sll
these dimensions, but must tske one, or s small
number as the point of departure, with conse­
quences for the style of the completed work.
Roger Sessions (THE MUSICAL- EXPERIENCE,
Princeton University Press, Princeton, N. J.,
1950, pp. 46-47) has given a description of
the process of composition that accords veil
with this view of style.
**I vould say that a musical idea
is simply that fragment of music
which forms the composer's point
.of depsrture, either for s whole
composition or for sn episode or
even single aspect of s composi-
'tion.. I ssy 'fragment 1 knowing
full veil that it can get me into
difficulties. For in my exper-
ience, in which I include observ-
. atlon and analysis ss well' ss
composition, a 'musical idea'
the starting point of a vital
musical 'train of thought'--
caa be virtually anything which
strikes a composer's imagin-
.
stion. It may, certainly, be a >. .*
* motif, a small but rhythmically *'
self-sufficient fragment of
melody or of harmony; but I am
fairly certain that by no means
sll motifs can be called 'musical
ideas'. On the other hand, I
could cite many examples where
the most essentisl musical ideas,
the elements that give the music
its real character, consist not
in motifs st sll, but in chords,
in sonorities, in rhythmic fig-
ures, or even in single notes of
a particularly striking context.
Sometimes--and this occurs, I
think, more often though not
always in works of composers
of great maturity, in 'late
works,' as we call them--one of
the most important musical
ideas, in a fundamental and
motivating sense, may be not
even a thematic fragment at sll
but some feature of the large
design, such ss a recurring
relationship between two har-
monica or keys, or even s lin-
ear relationship embodied in
different aspects of the music
at different moments."
The differences among the major styles of
classical Western music further illustrate
the dependence of style upon process. The com-
position of homophonic music, with its emphasis
on a prominent melodic line harmonized by the
other parts, proceeds in quite different ways
from the composition of polyphonic music, with
its interweaving of independent voicea. View-
ed from a harmonic atandpoint, polyphonic
 eiusic txhibits oany unuaual chorda or even
diaaonancea (e.g., of paaaing tonta) that art
timply byproductt of the working out of con-
trapuntal problema; and theae harmonica and
diaaonancea are an important tlement of poly-
phonic ttyle at experienced by the liatener.
But polyphonic muaic i* not written by intro^
dueIng diaaonancea.
Perhaps the.clearest expreaaiona of thit
notion of the tourcet of ttyle come from the
txponentt and practitionera of compoaition vith
twelve tonea--the idea of Arnold Schoenberg
that vnderliea ao much Twentieth Century muaic.
(Set, e.g., Joteph Rufer, Composition with
Twelve Notea. London: Barne and Rockliff,
reviaed edition, 1961.) The twelve-tone pro-
cedure may be eunmarized crudely aa followa:
The chromatic acale containa twelve tonea in
"each octave (correaponding to the twelve ktyt
per octave of the piano keyboard). The com-
poser selects, on the baaia of aome aet of
criteria, a particular tone row, a permuta-
tion of the twelve tonea of the chromatic
acale. .He then proceeda to deaign a compoai-
tion, uaing thia ordering of the tones to
define both the vertical (harmonic) and
horizontal (melodic) relationa. There are
many waya in which thia can be done, and
correspondingly many aub-atylea that are all
covered by the broad label of "twelve-tone
music." But all twelve-tone muaic recelvea
t strong anylietic imprint from its method of
generation--from taking the tone row at the
initial input to the generator.
The quotation from Combrich with which I
introduced thia paper equates style with
choice, but the choices of which Combrich
speaks pertain mainly to perception rather
r than to design process. Gombrich's choice it
'.' a choice among the many perceptual cuea that
'are available for representing, or creating
the Illusion of, the external reality. The
painter chooses a amall aubaet of theae cuet
at the baaia of hia ttyle and omita or de-
emphaaizea the reat. The artiat cannot meet
the totality of demands that an attempt to
reproduce nature literally would impose on
him, hence selects out aa hia design con-
atrainta Just a few of these demands.
In actual fact, perceptual aelection and
telection of deaign proceaa are not at all
Independent. For example, the choice between
a linear and a painterly mode of representa-
tion carries with it all aorta of commitmentt
at to how the painting ahall proceed. Witneat
Leonardo's prescription for (linear) painting
la Chapter IV of hia AKT OF PAINTING:
"Painting is divided into two
principal parta. The firat it
the figure, that la, the linea
which distinguish the forma of
bodies, and their component
parta. The aecond ia the
colour contained within thoat
limitt."
Ia tome modea of modern non-representa-
tional painting, the role of the proceaa in
forming the atyle ia especially clear. Here,
the painter may put an initial deaign upon the
canvaa for ita auggeative value aa to what ht
night do next. Such painting becomes even
more than painting with other methoda--a
feedback proceaa of interaction between paint-
er and partially completed canvaa.
Duane Palyka haa uaed the computer aa
Inatrument to create viaual compositions with
the aid of thia kind of feedback. Hia com-
poaing program employed a number of aeparate .
aubroutinea. The initial tubroutihea produced
a aimple compoaition that was then stored In
memory--generated aome pointa, for example,
that then served aa centera for circlea of
varying diametera; or generated pointa
that aerved aa vanishing pointa for aubsequent-
ly-generated aeta of linea. Other aubroutinea
then examined and modified the atored initial
compositions, distorting figurea, shading
them, aharpening or blurring boundariea, and
to on. In principle, there waa.no limit to
the number of atagea in the compoaing proceaa,.
but- in practice, two or three atagea sufficed
to produce compositions of aubatantial eathe-
tic intereat.
Function. Process. Ornament
If the designer's task it to choose and
aelect, then he must hsve aome baaia for
choosing what he doea. In worlds having Im-
mense numbers of alternative possibilities,
it would seem that he' would need a great many
criteria in order to narrow down theae poa-
aibilitiea to a aingle deaign. He would bt
confronted with comblnatorica in the apace of
possible criteria almost sa fearsome aa the
combinatorics in the space of possible de-
aigna, and hia deaign activity-would have to
be preceded by a pre-design activity to aelect
the criteria.
However, the deaign process synthesizes
only one (or a few) objecta rather than a large
number, and proceeda iteratively to build the
object cumulatively from an initial kernel.
Under these circumstancea, a few conatraintt
embedded in the atructure of the design pro-
cess itself, together with a few design re-
quirements applied again and again at each
atage of the cumulation, may auffice to de-
termine the final deaign. To the extent that
they do, the object designed will exhibit deep
unity in all ita aspects, which express the
working out in interaction of a amall number
of processes and parameter!.
Dealgners are most fortunate when nature
and technique impose severe constraints upon
them. If we did not understand it, we might
view the cathedral at Rheims aa highly
decorated and decorative. But with any feel
for the Gothic deaigner'a problem, we aee the
flying buttreasea and their pinnacles aa
functional meana for turning the great aide-
ward thrusts of the vault downward and con-
ducting then safely ttf the ground. The
elaborateness of the atructure it acceptable Notes
because it arises from applyiog a few baaic * This work was supported by Public Health
processes to an equally few imperative con- Service Reaearch Crant MI-07722, from the
straints. National Institute of Mental Health. The
When a act of initial deaign conacralnte ideas set forth here begsn to urge themselves
ia too eaaily satisfied, the deaign proceaa on me when I vas preparing my Karl Tavlor.
vill preaent us with aolutiona too eaaily. Compton Lectures, now published as Th<
Ve vill obtain more than one solution, and Sciences of the Artificial (M.I.T.'Press,
vill feel constrained to choice among them-- 1969). For s discussion of design, see Chap-
that is, to impose new constraints that bear ter 3 of* that volume, snd for s brief state-
no particular relation to the initial act. vent of its relation to style, p. 75.
Since these will frequently be constraints on
characteristics of the final design, rather 1. The reader wishing to pursue this point
than on its suitability to function or on the vill find s fuller discussion in my Models 'of
search process, they will lead us to super- Man (Wlley, 1957), particularly the introduc-
ficiality and mannerism. tion to Part IV, and Chapters 14, "A Behav-
An alternative is to retain the Initial ioral Model of Rational Choice," and 15,
constraints but set more severe acceptance "Rational Choice snd the Environment."
levels for them. Again, the Gothic cathedral
is a case in point. As long as the deaigners 2. The organization of problem solving sys-
made extravagant demands on the structure to tems is discussed more fully in Newell, A., 6
admit as much light as possible and, as a Simon, H. A., Human Problem Solving (Prentice-
means to doing this, sought to raiae the Hall, forthcoming, 1971),especially Chapters
height of the vault, all of their ingenuity 4 snd 14.
vas spent in finding £ .way to achieve their •tv»
goal. There was great need for elaboration, 3. Newell, A., & Simon, H. A. (1971), . /
but * little room for irrelevant elaboration. Chapter*4.
Conclusion 4. Defining the boundaries of s style by a
My main purpose here, however, is not to period in time'and a geographical location
preach a particular esthetic doctrine. Rather, really amounts to the same thing, for such
I have sought to show that those differences boundaries only make sense if there sre com-
among designs that we call "style"' arise from munal ities among the design programs thst
s variety of sources, and that the design operated inside them.
process is one of the most important of these.
The imprints of design process upon style are 5. See the extensive discussion of these mat-
fundamental in the same sense that the imprints ters in Killer & Isaacson, Experimental Music
of function, of material, and of manufacturing (McCraw-Hill, 1959), Chapters 5 and 7.
process are.
Ve have now entered an era where, for the 6. See Killer & Isaacson, 1959.
first time in history, the design process
itself is becoming directly accessible to
examination and description. Increasingly,
ve are able to characterize the method of
creating explicitly, instead of being forced
to indicate it indirectly, in descriptions
of the things created. Already, this new
capability is being reflected in novel forms
of artistic activity, in which the human
artist's task is to create a deaign process
that vill, in turn, create objects of esthetic
value. I have cited above the example of
Falyka's program for producing non-representa-
tional "prints" (1 don't know what else to call
them); and many of you are familiar with com-
puter-composed music like Lejaren Killer's
ILIIAC SUITE a.id COMPUTER CANTATA (6).
This shift in attention from the work of
srt to the design process is bound to have
consequences for style and design as signifi-
cant as the transformation from Kepler's kine-
matic pattern descriptions to Newton's dynam-
ic ones.