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In China, industrial designers are usually educated with engineering background while product designers are educated with art background. Despite these educational differences, both of them are adept at tackling design-related issues. However, different educational backgrounds can affect the idea generation, especially in the early stages of the design progress. This study investigates the thinking processes of designers between engineering and art backgrounds in the early stages of the design process. Designers are encouraged to express ideas verbally or by sketching, and linkography was used to visually depict the designer's thinking process. Subsequently, with the help of vertical transformation value and the chunk, the features in the thinking of the two types of designers are explored, including: 1) In most cases, the vertical transformation value of the product designer is higher than that of industrial designer, which indicates that product designer is better at the reflection in design. 2) The chunk patterns in the linkographs show that industrial designers prefer to decompose tasks into sub-tasks and solve them individually, while product design participants tend to solve problems as a whole from a global view. These findings can enlighten the future research directions for design education and design organizations in multidisciplinary backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Affected by the development strategy of Rural Space Reconstruction in China, the demand for rural mass housing has peaked in the North China Plain in the past 20 years. However, due to the inefficiency of conventional design methods, the rural houses built appear to have a noticeable trend of urbanization and homogeneity. To propose a more effective design approach to change the hitherto unsuccessful homogenized phenomenon of rural design, the study is based on investigating the composition, configuration and characteristics of the dwellings in some traditional villages of the eastern Shandong Province, and it compares and analyzes the differences between conventional methods and generation methods through three design tests: Test 1 is for the reappearance of a general mode of planning, Test 2 is based on the definition of shape-grammar-based rules and Test 3 is mainly used for the optimizing and programming of rules. Furthermore, based on the three prototypes of homestead combination, three-level rules are determined through the three tests mentioned above: Level-1 describes the housing prototype consisting of four homesteads, which generates a variety of spatial relations through the translation of homesteads. Level-2 describes a neighborhood prototype consisting of 16 homesteads, which generates various samples through splitting prototypes and expanding homesteads. Level-3 describes a block prototype consisting of 64 homesteads, which controls open space and identifies a given base during sample filling. Through the analysis of the tests results, the rationality and feasibility of the generative design approach are verified, proving that this approach effectively solves the design monotony problem that commonly exists in rural mass housing in the North China Plain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The leaders of construction innovation in China promote the integration of production best practices such as design for Excellence (DfX) in industrialized construction (IC) projects as a strategic path to leverage radical performance improvements in productivity, cost, quality, circularity, and sustainability. Despite its maturity in the manufacturing industry, the implementation of DfX methods in China's IC projects remains low. One widely cited reason for the sluggish interest is a poor understanding of the holistic business benefits that DfX methods could offer in IC projects. This study identified and evaluated 23 perceived benefits of DfX methods in IC projects in China. Quantitative data were collected using structured questionnaires administered to 229 IC academics and industry practitioners in China. Statistical analysis showed that all the benefits were perceived as significant. Based on mean significance indices, the top five perceived significant benefits include: "improves component design and production efficiency," "facilitates standardization and customization," "reduces labor requirements and improves productivity," "reduces labor, inventory and development costs," and "reduces material and construction wastes." The study grouped the benefits into four clusters, namely, improved project design productivity, efficiency, and management; shortened design and construction time; life cycle cost savings; and improved flexibility, adaptability, and circularity. This study constitutes the first holistic evaluation of the benefits of DfX methods in IC projects. The evaluated benefits may serve as a basis for measuring the business benefits to justify investments in DfX in IC projects. The outcome constitutes a starting point for developing evidence-based DfX performance measurement metrics, indicators, and tools in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on land use planning topics, including "Historical Amnesia: New Urbanism and the City of Tomorrow," "More Than Sector Theory: Homer Hoyt's Contributions to Planning Knowledge" and "Methodology for the Survival Analysis of Urban Building Stocks."