Preface

Summary

It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more dangerous to conduct, nor more doubtful in its success, than an attempt to introduce changes. For the innovator will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new.

– Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince and The Discourses, 1513, Chapter 6

The idea for this book was initially sparked by a review of prior publications describing the status of engineering design research, particularly, Prof. Yoshikawa's 1985 collection of papers titled Design and Synthesis. This review suggested that a publication presenting the status of design research at the change of the century would be valuable. Immediately, however, it became clear that the range and scope of design research are such that no single collection could be thorough and comprehensive without limiting its scope to a portion of the state of the art in engineering design research. The portion that appears to have the greatest promise, and that has established its foundations since 1984, is formal engineering design synthesis: the automatic creation of design configurations.

Over single-malt whiskeys one evening in April 1999, between sessions at George Stiny's Workshop on Shape Computation, we discussed the idea with enthusiasm. Thus this edited book project was born.