Design space exploration is a long-standing focus in computational design research. Its three main threads are accounts of designer action, development of strategies for amplification of designer action in exploration, and discovery of computational structures to support exploration. Chief among such structures is the design space, which is the network structure of related designs that are visited in an exploration process. There is relatively little research on design spaces to date. This paper sketches a partial account of the structure of both design spaces and research to develop them. It focuses largely on the implications of designers acting as explorers.

Design space explorers are computer programs that play on an exploration metaphor to support design. They assist designers in creating alternative designs by structuring the process of design creation in a space of alternatives. Subsidiary metaphors relevant to design space explorers are generation, navigation, and reuse. This paper introduces, in two sketches, typed feature structures as a formal system in which a design space explorer and its knowledge level might be implemented. First, informal and abstract properties of typed feature structures suffice to build a sketch of the behavior of a design space explorer. Second, using an example based on single-fronted cottages (a common Australian housing type), we outline the typed feature structure machinery most relevant to design space exploration.

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Abstract. Design space exploration is a long-standing focus in computational design research. Its three main threads are accounts of designer action, development of strategies for amplification of designer action in exploration and discovery of computational structures to support exploration. Chief amongst such structures is the design space -the network structure of related designs that are visited in an exploration process. There is relatively little research on design spaces to date. This paper sketches a partial account of the structure of both design spaces and research to develop them. It focuses largely on the implications of designers acting as explorers.