From Function to Structure in Engineering Design

Abstract

Peter Kroes et al (The Empirical Turn in the Philosophy of Technology, P. Kroes & A. Meijers, (eds.) JAI, 20009 )frame the challenge of engineering design as bridging the divide between function and structure, as moving from a statement of functional requirements to the definition of (physical) structure - the latter, in large part, taking the form of design drawings, parts-lists, user manuals, and the like. I flesh out this picture, arguing that the notion of “structure” is best understood as of two sorts: There is “material structure” as the definition of the concrete material object of design as recognized above, but there is structure again in a formal sense - as abstract, engineering models and representations of the “parts” of the design (object- worlds here). It is this latter “formal structure” of the parts and their place in the whole that participants in design work to define, given the stated functional requirements of the whole.