31/10/2021

Prof. Dr. Noha Essam, PhD

Professor of Interior Architecture & Interdisciplinary Design

Environmental Psychologist/ A Member of World Design Organization -WDO

Design-by-analogy and Metaphor is a powerful part of the design process across the wide variety of modalities used by designers such as linguistic descriptions, sketches and diagrams. Many tools are needed to support people’s ability to find and use analogies, and a deeper understanding of the cognitive mechanisms underlying design and analogy is a crucial step in developing these tools. The level of abstraction for the representation of prior knowledge and the representation of a current design problem both affect people’s ability to retrieve and use analogous solutions. A general semantic description in memory facilitates retrieval of that prior knowledge. The ability to find and use an analogy is also facilitated by having an appropriate functional model of the problem.

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 Analogy is to manage an objective in correspondence to a source (base) in like manner to the similarities between them while thinking about the distinctions in the meantime. Similarity is the procedure of relationship between circumstances from one space (source) to another (objective) made conceivable through the foundation of relations or representations. Designs are analogous if they share at least one function or behavior, but not necessarily similar structures. Analogical association and recovery in human insight depend on how a problem is represented, where past research demonstrates that different representations encourage analogical thinking through the recovery of powerful and novel analogies put away in originators' long haul memory. the term analogy is characterized as outline of a thought by methods for another commonplace thought that is comparable or parallel to it in some critical highlights. The term metaphor is for the most part characterized as a non-literal articulation which deciphers a thing or activity through an inferred examination with something different; an image.

Analogy and Metaphor: defining the relative meanings of analogies and metaphors in design. Both compare a situation in one domain with the situation in another. Two systems have been theorized to exist within a person’s cognitive structure: (a) the symbolic system, and (b) the associative reasoning system. The symbolic or rule-based reasoning system is where abstract real world problems are reasoned about and solved through symbolic representations and rules. The associative, similarity-based reasoning system is where problems are reasoned about through associations or similarities with other known information. Although researchers disagree as to which system is dominant, this second system is significant because associative reasoning is viewed to be a fundamental part of expert design cognition.

Analogical reasoning is a function of the associative, similarity-based reasoning system. This type of reasoning is a method of activating stored schema based on the identification of connections, parallels, or similarities between, what are typically perceived as dissimilar items. Analogies serve as a type of scaffolding, where new information is anchored to existing schemata. Analogical reasoning is thus the use of schema analogues, or knowledge from previous experiences, to facilitate learning in a new situation. Analogies enable an individual’s symbolic ability or “the ability to pick out patterns, to identify recurrences of these patterns despite variation in the elements that compose them, to form concepts that abstract and reify these patterns, and to express these concepts in language”.

Researchers have concluded that analogical reasoning can be categorized into two different forms. First, analogical reasoning can be used to understand the operation of a new device. Schema, or stored knowledge, of how a device operates is used to reason about how an analogous device might operate or understanding how to operate a device can be inferred from knowing how the larger system works. Second, analogical reasoning uses schema, or knowledge already stored, to reason about, infer, and/or predict information to solve a problem. In other words, analogue schemata are used to compare what is already stored as schemata, to a new domain of knowledge.

Another important component of analogical reasoning in design problems is creativity. Four analogical processes can be used to spur conceptual change: (a) highlighting, (b) projection of candidate inferences, (c) re-representation, and (d) restructuring.

Metaphor used as analogy or representative from something that we wanted to describe. It is used from mere simplification to poetic used or even to construct meaning. In its broadest sense every form of exchange, identity transference or terminology transposition could be within the characteristic of metaphorical. Thus, metaphor is not only just a semantic form but a fundamental character of human linguistic relation with the world. There are at least three different idea of Metaphor derived from Aristotle explanation: (1) as substitution for a literal condition (2) as borrower from its original context (3) as deviation from usual using.

Designer knows better in the light of this, as designer always creatively created something from abstraction to its actual implementation. We know it as concept or idea. This concept or ideas usually based on three categories of metaphors: Intangible Metaphor, Tangible Metaphor and Combined Metaphor. The first could be understood as a concept, an idea, a human condition or a particular quality. The second associated strictly from some visual or material character, while the latter was when the conceptual and the visual overlap or juxtaposed with each other. In most cases tangible metaphor refers to a noun as it is close to literal expression and intangible metaphor refers to an adjective as it is close to experience.

Metaphors frame assist the designers in defining the design problem. Metaphors are normally used to outline's understanding, exercises and responses to an item. They enable understand client needs or physical traits from the wellspring of motivation.

Metaphor can be seen as a general classification enveloping analogies. An approach to recognize the two is to sort metaphors as things analyzed from an mysterious class and analogies from things thought about from various classifications.  Results from test information demonstrate that designers utilize both analogy and metaphor inside the plan procedure unwittingly. All the more fundamentally, the researches outcomes in such context recommend that metaphor use in the early problem framing stages of design to enhance understanding of a design situation. Metaphor methodology has a great impact on comprehension of the design itself. The consequences of these discoveries prompt a general philosophy to all the more viably utilize metaphors and analogies in design or innovation forms. This methodology might be adjusted for use inside specific classrooms, educational outline processes, or modern improvement forms.