Synthetic A Priori Ryan Singer

Seed idea: What can a building a physical space with Christopher Alexander's methods teach us about design? With reflections from a real project, evaluating a drawing vs. standing in the real thing, and questioning the difference between form and function.

Seed idea: Can we use Husserl's notion of "fundierung" to deal with Christopher Alexander's definition of "living structure"? With connections to affordances, Kauffman's screwdriver, and three levels of software: the backend layer, the interaction layer, and the "life" layer.

Seed idea: The form/context boundary gives us requirements for an initial design. How do we apply this iteratively to eliminate unknowns as we go? With a case study from an app for analyzing interview data. Plus point forecasts vs. system properties, and reviving Christopher Alexander in the software world.

Seed idea: Can we formally define the space of a market to describe the movement of a product's position? With connections to jobs to be done and examples of Basecamp's jobs.

Seed idea: Can modeling a design project as a network provide underpinnings to better estimate risk and sequence problem solving? With connections to multi-scale systems, Alexander's idea of an unfolding process, and thin vs. fat-tailed variables.

Seed idea: If Alexander's work tells us a design is a language, can we use linguistics to better understand it? With connections to system design, pattern languages, and Ronald Langacker's Cognitive Grammar.